Packing Up and Moving On

For those of you who don’t know me personally, I’ll give you a little bit of context which is essentially that I am moving house at the end of this month. Anyone who would recognise my face on the street probably already knows this as I may have mentioned it once or twice 🙂

Anyhow, as a precursor to moving, I have rather a lot of packing to do; a whole house and 2.5 years worth of packing to do if you want to be specific about it. Packing is one of those things which as a whole is a pretty dull task but actually, as you are doing it, it can be like a form of therapy. You look through things you’d forgotten were there and remember how you came to have them and what they meant to you at the time. Some of those things you decide to keep so you can relive that memory again and again and some you decide to say goodbye to as the significance of the memory has somewhat faded over the course of time. This is the process I am going through at the moment. I’m incredibly excited to be moving in with a friend and the flat we’ve chosen is lovely but even the walls of the house I live in now will be hard to say goodbye to.

You see my current house is the house where everything fell apart so spectacularly. It’s the place where I had to dig deep and find a strength I never knew I had so that I could rebuild my life in a way that actually worked for me. It’s also a place where I’ve been happy, honestly happy and without relying on anyone else for that happiness. I feel like the house has witnessed and supported me through a transition that I had no idea I was going to make when I moved in. It’s been my comforting shell, my safe place and also a sign to me of my independence. I chose to stay in this house, I chose the furniture that’s in it and I’ve chosen the people that have been allowed through its doors.

When I moved in I was pretty much walking along a tightrope of sanity, literally one little wobble and I was over the edge and completely floored. I didn’t really realise it at the time though, it was how I’d been for most of my life and I hadn’t noticed the tightrope getting thinner and thinner. I’m pretty sure it had started as a full on bridge but each fall had chipped away at it and the falls had been getting more and more painful. I was waiting for the day when someone would come along and fix everything, tell me that things would be ok and take control of my life for me. It was only during my time in this house that I had the realisation that I could re-build my tightrope each time I climbed back up and now it’s a huge platform, I haven’t even found the edge yet because it’s that big. Seriously, massive! I can lose my footing any number of times and still not fall. 

So now I’m clearing out my house and it’s reminding me of how I was when I moved in and how much more content I am now. To leave feels a bit strange and a tiny bit of me worries about finding the edge of my huge platform, but the majority of me is looking forward to finding the edge so I can look over without fear. Thank you house, you’ve been truly awesome and I hope the next people to live here appreciate just how comforting your bricks and mortar are. It’s time for me to move on up now but I’ll be sure to stop by and check they’re treating you right every now and then x