My Emotions Layer Onto Places: Why I Find Moving House Hard

People say moving house is one of the most stressful events, but I want to unpack that a little. Forgive the pun.

This is not going to be a well-written and thought-through post. This post is where I'm going to plonk all my thoughts about moving house and why I'm finding it so challenging. Because I am. I'm finding it really challenging.

Nearly every time I talk about moving with someone and I say 'I'm sad', they remind me that it's exciting, I'm moving to make my life (even) better and it's going to be really enjoyable to live in my new place.

I know they are right— because I know my reasons for moving. And they are solid reasons, with well-thought through logic that my husband and I have been discussing for a long time.

But I can't help but feel immense loss—actual grief!— for leaving from this city. This is the city that gave me so much.

In no particular order: a career in education that means so much to me, beautiful friendships, DBT which changed my life, poetry through the spoken word communities, my influential time volunteering at ChildLine, opportunities to express myself through writing and speaking, my amazing husband, our brilliant daughter.

It's also where I wrote two books and where I found an 'academic home' in the academic field of Medical Humanities for my interest in writing and art about health and disability.

The gratitude is immense.

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There's a railway bridge between my work and my home. This bridge has colourful words painted on it which suggest that the world is full of opportunity.

I keep crying every time I see it. I'm happy for the future that will come. I'm also sad about leaving. I'm really sad about leaving. That's my dialectic right there.

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I feel very strong connections to people, as my readers will know. I find it easy to love.

But I also get very attached to places— my emotions and feelings layer onto locations and they take on character of their own in my mind. I even wrote a dissertation on Viriginia Woolf's use of places to depict mental landscapes/'mindscapes' ('There is in the British Museum an enormous mind') during my English Literature degree.

Places fuse with my mental state. There are places I go to when I have an emotional need to fill such as calm, reassurance, a sense of connection to others or the world around me. One of the first things I do when I feel low is go for a walk.

I'm also very sentimental about places. This is the place where [....] happened is a common phrase in my mind. I like to revisit memories for all kinds of reasons, and sometimes I do that through revisiting places. I find it upsetting to think about not being able to do that easily.

In other words, I find it hard to let go.

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I find it hard to let go in many senses. People, places, ideas, desires... Moving house is a process of letting go. I'm uprooting. But I also know this is an opportunity for me to grow new, deeper, roots.

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So what am I going to do to help myself get through this?

I'm going to call upon my DBT skills. Firstly, radical acceptance. I need to radically accept, over and over again, that moving will be hard. I have to roll with the punches it is throwing, and will continue to throw, at me.

If I feel sad about moving, I'm going to let myself feel sad about it. I'm not going to force excitement or happiness in through these great swathes of sadness. Excitement and happiness will doubtless come through later. They are there, they're just buried below this sense of loss right now.

I'm not being ungrateful, I'm just being me. I've always struggled with changes, especially those involving with saying goodbye, so why would I be any different now?

I'm a person with a diagnosis of BPD— and isn't that the same as saying I'm a person with relational trauma? Past struggles plays out in my present life even though these responses no longer serve me. I'm trying, determinedly, to untangle.

Secondly, honesty. I want to tell people how much they have meant, and mean, to me. I just prefer that way of being. If I care, then I want to show I care.

Thirdly, self-compassion (as much as possible). In the last few weeks, I've been flustered, been overwhelmed, burst into tears, struggled to focus, been irritable and done some potentially very socially-awkward things out of anxiety. I'm trying to tell myself that it's okay and the people I need in my life will understand.

Acceptance. I'm trying— as a continuous process— to accept myself. How I want to live, how I want to communicate, how I want to love, be within my relationships. Also, my imperfections and this process. It's a constant unfolding.

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So, the weekend is nearly here and I'm tired after a long and emotional week. I find all of this hard, but writing about it here makes it feel a bit lighter. Thank you for being here with me, amongst my boxes and my soon-to-be memories.

-Rosie x