Moving During the Coronavirus

My friend Kristen Miller wrote a great blog post about moving during a pandemic, and I’m shamelessly grabbing her idea.

There’s some stuff about moving that doesn’t change during a pandemic. You still need to purge, still need to organize, still need to manage the logistics.

Jeremy and I have done a massive move like this one, a “permanently leave a place you’ve lived for a few years, never to come back except for very occasional visits” kind of move, exactly once. In 1994 we left Texas after our first stint as working adults, leaving behind colleagues and a community. That time we were heading off cruising but knew (or at least hoped fervently) we’d never live in Texas again. Goodbye was really goodbye.

Heading out under the Kemah Bridge for the last time.

I remember wondering back then if we were making the right decision. If we should just plan on coming back to the same place, if we should just stick to what we knew. I’m sure I was nostalgic because there was a bit of regret and fear in the unknown; Texas wasn’t our favorite spot to be but it was comfortable. Comfort is good, right?

In 2009, we pseudo-moved when we took the kids cruising. But we kept the house, homeschooled the kids by keeping in touch with their classrooms at the local school, and pretty much took a sabbatical from jobs. We left the attic chock full of what we wanted to keep; the house was rented furnished. There were goodbye parties that were more of the “see you soon” variety; when we returned, other than our deep sense of disconnect to the fast-paced world of American suburbia, life settled back to what it largely was before we left.

This move is different, of course. It’s more permanent.

We’ve been downsizing and clearing clutter for months. After all, we initially thought we’d be putting the house on the market over a year ago. Still, the flurry of activity since early May of this year has been relentless. Purge, pack, repeat. Trying to determine what is boat-bound, what’s “get rid of” worthy, and what needs to go to the OPO (or even for a future tiny home). Balancing the desire to limit what we store with the reality that there is a house where we can store stuff for “free” - and it would really stink to firesale things like dressers and dishes when our kids will be moving into apartments/houses at some point relatively soon and could use those items.

Logistics such as address changes, turning off utilities, even the last-minute scramble of realizing I’d forgotten to file the change of address form with the post office. A last mow/weedwhack.

There’s nothing in any of those happenings that’s different because of COVID. Well, maybe the fact that the people buying our house have never laid eyes on it (they’re moving from LA), and that any items we sold changed hands with all parties wearing masks and gloves, or via contactless pickup.

What is different is the saying goodbye part.

I wrote an earlier post about the energy and emotion around this move being 100% excitement. No regret, no sadness.

That’s not completely accurate. It’s not inaccurate either. It’s just weird.

Previous movings have included going away parties. Last rounds of dinners together, final play dates (when the kids were little). The Charlottesville house has been the scene of countless overflowing pizza parties; those came to an abrupt end in early March. I remember telling one person who sent regrets about having to miss the last one that “that’s okay - there will be another one!”

Rolling out dough

Not so much. Thanks, COVID.

There were texts from friends, a few taken (and a few missed) opportunities for final socially distanced walks and talks.

Would I feel more sadness or regret if we’d had months of heartfelt goodbyes?

Our friend Cecelia organized a complete surprise going away glass-lifting for Monday evening, gathering a few (masked) neighbors onto our front lawn. We thought she was just coming over for a quick conversation.

The sign even has Calypso’s name on it!

We motored out of the neighborhood at 7 am, music blasting, heading first to Averill and then, in a few months, to Calypso for refit and cruising.

The surreal nature of existence during the pandemic, where life is more solitary and less social, combined with the fact that our initial stop is to a place I’ve known my entire life, makes this move feel suspended in time. It’s a bit like a movie scene where the background is stopped or moving really slowly and just one person goes about business as usual.

Or maybe that’s how moving always feels, and we’ve just not done it often enough to realize.

House is ready for new owners!