Musings on Moving

by SHERALYN ROMAN

Moving is a word fraught with tension and challenge, but also positivity and joy. Moving might mean anything from one's ability to walk at will, or dance with abandon, (no matter how silly we might look) to moving from your first apartment to a starter home (poor kids these days, perchance to dream) to a big, family home or back to a condo or downsizing into an apartment again. In the workplace, problems are referred to as having “many moving parts” and in a demonstration of strength we might commit to “moving heaven and earth” to make something we really want to happen, happen. Moving at all, for someone injured or living with a disability is both a challenge and a victory. When we hear tragic news, we are “moved to tears,” or we might refer to a winner's speech at the Oscars as “moving.” In short, the word moving is one for which the very definition seems to be a moving target! 

Right now, when I think of moving, I think of packing up a lifetime of memories, tossing out a lifetime of clutter, and making list, after list, after list of what's staying, what's going and “what the heck is that and where did it come from?” We're in the process of moving which means for the next little while we will always be “on the move” because when you've been in one place for 25+ years every time you move from one room to another you spy yet another object that must be dealt with. Moving, as I am discovering, also involves a whole lot of moving things from one room to another while you decide whether to move them or not. I've a feeling there's a message in there somewhere – that if I am simply moving things around while I decide whether to move them or not - the answer is I probably should not be moving them! 

Moving, as I am discovering, is also very moving. As in, emotional. I'm not overly tied to certain objects and “keepsakes” have always been more my mother's thing than mine but, I am having a harder time than I thought I would with disposing of certain items. You know, things like the 432 craft projects (per kid!) that they made between the ages of 2-12, and my inexplicable attachment to my band uniform from the high school years. Yes, I was a band nerd but I got to travel widely on a “get out of school free pass” at least once or twice a year, playing everywhere from New York City, to Florida, to just up the road in Muskoka so I don't regret being a nerd one bit!

While I can easily toss, sell or donate my wedding china (sorry Mum, it's already gone) the thought of getting rid of my Bumpa's pair of sunglasses had me reaching back into the garbage bag to pull them out again. Where on earth I'll store said glasses in a home that is significantly smaller than the one we're in now I have no idea. We're going to have three or four times the property but the house is small and leaves little room for sentimentality. I've a feeling I'll be moving twice. That is, moving soon and then moving a whole bunch of stuff back out, soon after we move in. I anticipate Evolve, Goodwill or the Salvation Army may soon be in for a donation because one thing I absolutely refuse to do is pay for my “stuff” to be stored. After all, it's taking me a while to get there but at the end of the day - it really is just “stuff.” 

Moving is a lot of work. Moving is hard. But when I compare this kind of “downsizing by choice” move to the other kinds of moves it could have been, I really have nothing to complain about at all. I can move my own body at will and on command. I can move because I am healthy. I'm moving because luckily I have the choice and the opportunity to do something we hope is better for our family right now and not because I'm being evicted, or can't afford to make my payments. In good news for some and perhaps a sigh of resignation for others, I'm moving but staying in the Caledon area because we love the Town, even if half of it is being paved over and the other half potentially blasted away! I'm moving just far enough that one Ward Councillor will be glad to see me gone especially with certain traffic woes about to escalate, and another one may or may not be happy to see me coming! A certain Regional Councillor, however, can't ditch me that easily, nor I hope, will this paper who graciously plays host to my regular random musings, on moving or otherwise!