What They Don’t Tell You About Moving

We officially moved! The exclamation is as if it’s been a happy move but to be honest, it hasn’t been. This has been one of the more difficult times of my life. I didn’t know what to expect, but I thought there would be more joy.

It’s been a month since we made the move to Oklahoma. After 25 years in Colorado Law Enforcement, my husband decided to retire. We lived there for 25 years and experienced many changes in the state but it just kept getting worse and worse. The business he had built for his eventual retirement was no under fire from the Colorado Legislation so our livelihood was under attack.

Not only was he under attack at work from legislators, regulators, politicians, and citizens, the department lacked leadership and had been falling to ruin for the last 10 years or so. He had to get out and I understand why, but I am still upset. Could he not have gone a bit longer?

Truth is, he was mean. He had no patience at home or at work. He was burnt out from trying to pick up piece after piece and make things work at his department. So he retired. With how the state was, we couldn’t afford to live there anymore. This meant, we needed to find new roots. Instead of new ones, we returned to mine.

Oklahoma

We picked what seemed to be a beautiful home inside and out. It has much to offer but it’s not as simple as moving in and being established. What they don’t tell you is that the home will smell different. The floors will feel different. The walls will look different. And there will be so many different things, you will feel lost.

I feel lost in my own home. There is no comfort here. All of my senses are going haywire. I’m searching for familiar sights, sounds and smells but everything is new. When COVID hit, we felt like we were in the twilight zone. What is the zone beyond that? I’m there. I never recovered from the COVID zone. I complained I had no footing, there was no ground. I’m grasping for something around me and there is nothing there, except my husband and kids. The kids are the same, my husband is not.

He has a new job, with a new schedule, and new income; which isn’t that good. We are poorer then when we left but we have more, due to equity and what we were building. One thing missing is flexibility. That’s gone. Eventually, life will have a new normal. I don’t know if I want it. Even if I were to move back, it won’t be the same. I loved my home in Colorado. A different home there will still be foreign.

New-Normal

When will the new normal begin? Is it new carpet? Paint and pictures on the walls? Friends? What will it be that will help me feel like I am home, rather than lost in a world I am sort of familiar with yet completely unfamiliar with?

What they don’t tell you about moving is that you grieve. You cry hard. Realtors make it seem like this is the best thing for you, but in reality, you are blindsided. I wasn’t prepared for the bugs. Ticks, nests of ticks, scorpions, huge spiders, and more. We live on land so we have to be concerned about wild animals, owls and hawks snatching our small dog, raccoon latrines…who knows what these are?

I’m not handling it well. I’m building resentment. I came willingly…sort of. I cried alot before we moved. There were some people I couldn’t even look at without crying because I knew I was leaving them. At times I wanted to be excited and happy about what we would be gaining because watching what I was losing was too painful. Yet, once I had a bit of excitement, it was quickly doused with guilt. Why was I leaving such an amazing community and my beautiful home?

Right now, it feels like the pit of despair. I’m trying to stay out of it but I’m not doing a good job. At least not with my husband. I can’t look at him in the eyes because I’m sad and upset. I don’t want to talk to him or even spend time with him because he is the reason this happened. It feels like I’m dying.

What They Don’t Tell You About Moving

The happy pictures are of real happy moments we have had but this is hard. I had to go numb while packing up because if I spent any time thinking about what I was doing, I would have never packed. People would hug me and cry that I was leaving and I just sat there, with a blank stare, and couldn’t bring a single tear to my eye.

That’s what they don’t tell you about moving. Sure, they mention how hard it is logistically, but they do not mention you feel like someone died. In reality, I did die. I am not who I used to be and I can never go back. I have to morph into something new and I have to like it.

For now, we will cling to the few happy moments we have had but honestly, my daily grind is tearing me apart. I watch as my husband goes to work happy and comes home happy while I spend all day dealing with household catastrophes. I’m alone. I don’t even have friends who can comfort me in person. The phone just isn’t the same. Who wants a long distance relationship?

These are the things they don’t tell you about moving. It sucks.

P.S. I miss you.