Reflections on moving house
At the end of June, we moved house. With two kids. To a completely new area about 60km from where we had lived for the past 6 years. away from the Swiss city I had called my home for the past 13 years. To say that it was a busy period in my life might be an understatement.
The process of moving house
A couple of days before our actual moving date, I met for lunch with some lovely coaches from all over Switzerland who had done the same training as me. One of them told me that you needed to go through different stages when moving house and shouldn't skip any of them - and it was so true! There were so many things I felt anxious, sad, emotional about in the weeks leading up to the move - yet once I had the time to process them, I managed to let go. Let me share two of these milestones with you:
Leaving our old apartment: even though I was looking forward to the new house, I felt very attached to our old place. This was where we became a family, where we brought both our children home to after birth and where they lived for the first months and years of their life! We knew every single neighbour in the house and could count on their support if needed. Our opposite neighbours have become additional grandparents for our children - we could just open the door and they would walk over on their own to ring the bell. It was also the place that I had lived the longest since leaving my parents' house to go to university in France in 2005. Our family often joked that we were regularly moving house (this was the 4th apartment we had lived in since I moved to Bern at the end of 2011) but every move we made had a reason - just like this one also had its reasons!
What helped me let go was the whole process of moving itself: packing each box, labeling it, seeing the movers take all our furniture in their truck and drive away with it. I spent the days after the move mostly unpacking in the new house, but I really wanted to be there when we gave the new owners the keys, just to see the empty apartment once last time and consciously take a moment to walk around the place to say goodbye.
What also helped me was that we had a little going away party with all our neighbours. During this whole period, taking all these steps felt like moving forward in the process of moving house, letting go of what we have had and embracing where we are at now. What of course helped was being welcomed by our lovely new neighbours with a barbacue, our son finding new friends to play with and having some close friends live nearby.
Saying goodbye to nursery: this one was really hard! We loved our old nursery: it's the first nursery we've known, with a huge garden where even our little one would think twice before coming out of the sandpit at pick up. The carers were great, we had the feeling that our kids were always well taken care of and we trusted their judgement. I also appreciated that they had a wealth of knowledge that would reassure me when I was anxious about some development stages, etc. I came to think of them as part of our community, our support system and we appreciated that they always took the time for a bit a longer chat if they were not busy at pick up. We ended up saying goodbye to nursery in several steps:
the week before we left, we had a chat with the group leader where we discussed about the progress of the kids (mainly our older son who started at this nursery when he was 1 year old and left now that he starts kindergarten)
the nursery had a goodbye ritual for each child that was leaving where they would drive away in a little car with their picture on it. On the last day, we brought cake (with smarties!) for the kids as well as a goodbye present for the people working at nursery.
we had the opportunity to spontaneously say goodbye to one of the carers at the going away party we had with our neighbours, and it was lovely to also have a chat with her outside of the nursery environment, especially as she was the person that made it hardest for us to leave because we really appreciated the way she interacted with the children and with us as parents.
At the same time, I had an appointment to get to know the new carer at the new nursery. I had a good first impression, which really helped. In the process of getting to know the new nursery, I have to remind myself to let go of my expectations and lean in to our needs and priorities for childcare: our children are well taken care of by people and an institution that we trust, they are safe, they get varied and healthy food prepared in the kitchen of the nursery, the play rooms & garden allow them to explore and play freely. Everyone that we dealt with so far was very professional and really nice to the kids and our eldest son was looking forward to going back and already felt familiar there. I had expectations of finding the “perfect” place with the “perfect” people, which I compared to what we had previously, but I have tried to lean into the reality that we are living in now and after two weeks, I haven't discovered any negative points or had any negative feedback from my children that would lead me to re-evaluate the choice of our nursery.
Also, when in doubt, ask your children :) We’ve asked our son several times if he likes the new nursery, which one he prefers and he always says that he likes both the same and is looking forward to going back. This reminded me that children have a simple vision of life and we adults tend to overcomplicate things at times… ;)
We've now been in our new home for 2.5 weeks, the children have finished their adaptation period at the new nursery and we have just received the last piece of furniture that we had ordered (a lovely wooden table handmade by a carpenter from Bern). We've arrived here, yet we are still unpacking, discovering and exploring. One really big milestone will be when our son starts kindergarten in August: a big step forward, a new rhythm, loads of lessons in independence and letting go, but also a lot of excitement and joy about this new period of his and ours lives. I'm hoping that by the end of August, we'll slowly fall into a rhythm that will be ours for the next couple of months and years, with little habits and favourite spots in this town, friends in the neighbourhood and afternoons in the parc. Until then, I'm trying to embrace where we are at right now, accept that we still have not unpacked all the boxes, sorted out the cellar or cleared up the chaos in the kids' room, and will not do so before heading on holidays next week.
My takeaways after the move
Here are some of my takeaways after moving house (and moving house for the first time with children):
Moving house is a process and leaning into it, saying goodbye, letting go has helped me move forward, into our new home.
Planning in a couple of hours a week to pack has helped me not feel too stressed in the weeks and days prior to the move.
In the last hours of clearing, it feels like stuff just keep multiplying or appearing out of nowhere!
Boxes don't magically unpack themselves (unfortunately!) and it's ok to take time to sort out the new place, figure out where everything goes to and maybe rearrange things.
Planning a move is hard: as it is something I don't do often, I don't have any experience of how long different tasks take and many times I felt disappointed when I couldn't finish what I had planned in a certain period of time. I had to remind myself that arriving in a new home doesn't happen in a day and that everything I unpack is a step closer to creating the new home that we have dreamed of for two years.
It's important to plan in rest, even in busy periods. The week we moved, my husband and I spent hours packing and would clear things or unpack boxes as soon as the kids were in bed. After that, I realised that I needed that rest in the evening and tried to find a balance of taking an evening or two a week to unpack, but prioritising rest on the others.
Moving house is - similar to having kids - for me a practice in asking for and accepting help. There's only so much I can do and with two small children, we've had a lot of stuff that piled up in the past couple of years. I would not have been so relaxed through the process of this move without the support of our family and friends who looked after the children, helped us pack and unpack, hang lamps, build up wardrobes, etc. We also hired a moving company and had help cleaning our old apartment - moving definitely requires a certain budget, but I'm grateful that it was affordable for us as it was really worth it for my mental health.
Journaling helps me process my feelings and work through overwhelm. In busy periods, especially when I can't schedule proper rest time or exercise, I try to focus on journaling at least once a day, even if it's only 5 mins of gratitude journaling. I makes me feel more grounded and focused in my next steps.
If you are in a busy period of life and would like to find out how coaching could support you, I'd love to offer you a free coaching session to discuss this. Simply reach out to me by mail and I'll send you my calender of availabilities.