Traveller's remorse
by prudence on 22-Sep-2011
Staring a big move in the face, we are confronting, perhaps as never before, all the downsides of mobility.
We are still embroiled in visa and work permit negotiations on at least two fronts. This creates aggro and uncertainty.
And we have decided to travel relatively light -- taking a few cartons, rather than a whole home's worth of furniture and equipment. It makes sense. Storing, after a certain point, costs more than buying new. Shipping is expensive, and only postpones the problem till the next move.
But travelling light involves saying goodbye to possessions that have been with us a long, long time.
We've done this so often -- said goodbye to trees we planted in England; to graves of cats we buried in New Zealand; to cars that shared so many little adventures with us; to books we bought in pursuit of all kinds of interests; and to arrangements of furniture that was probably never hip or cool or stylish, but that WE had chosen as the backdrop to OUR lives.
So often -- but this time it's worse. I don't know why. Maybe because the parting is accompanying other big transitions. Maybe because it's more radical. Before, there was always the prospect of being reunited with at least a goodly proportion of our things some day in the future. This time, it's pretty much all being scattered to the four winds. The bed we bought almost the minute I stepped off the plane in New Zealand; the simple wood-framed sofa and chairs that go right back to 1991; the little bookcase I had as a child; the hideous but so, so practical folding table with stackable chairs; the bookshelves Nigel built; the sleek, glass-topped tables that I wrote my PhD thesis on -- it's all going.
It's only stuff. But it's not -- it's memories, it's history, it's home.
And grief for things is compounded by the logistical difficulty of disposing of them. No-one wants our stuff, it seems. Too hard to get it down from the 20th floor of an apartment building -- in today's environment of high labour and transport costs, it's just not commercially viable.
I've always railed at people who dump stuff on berms. Now I understand why they do it. They have a plane ticket for tomorrow, and they can't get rid of their stuff.
At this moment, I feel I could give up on mobility. Just have a home and a job, and go on holiday once a year, like normal people...
We are still embroiled in visa and work permit negotiations on at least two fronts. This creates aggro and uncertainty.
And we have decided to travel relatively light -- taking a few cartons, rather than a whole home's worth of furniture and equipment. It makes sense. Storing, after a certain point, costs more than buying new. Shipping is expensive, and only postpones the problem till the next move.
But travelling light involves saying goodbye to possessions that have been with us a long, long time.
We've done this so often -- said goodbye to trees we planted in England; to graves of cats we buried in New Zealand; to cars that shared so many little adventures with us; to books we bought in pursuit of all kinds of interests; and to arrangements of furniture that was probably never hip or cool or stylish, but that WE had chosen as the backdrop to OUR lives.
So often -- but this time it's worse. I don't know why. Maybe because the parting is accompanying other big transitions. Maybe because it's more radical. Before, there was always the prospect of being reunited with at least a goodly proportion of our things some day in the future. This time, it's pretty much all being scattered to the four winds. The bed we bought almost the minute I stepped off the plane in New Zealand; the simple wood-framed sofa and chairs that go right back to 1991; the little bookcase I had as a child; the hideous but so, so practical folding table with stackable chairs; the bookshelves Nigel built; the sleek, glass-topped tables that I wrote my PhD thesis on -- it's all going.
It's only stuff. But it's not -- it's memories, it's history, it's home.
And grief for things is compounded by the logistical difficulty of disposing of them. No-one wants our stuff, it seems. Too hard to get it down from the 20th floor of an apartment building -- in today's environment of high labour and transport costs, it's just not commercially viable.
I've always railed at people who dump stuff on berms. Now I understand why they do it. They have a plane ticket for tomorrow, and they can't get rid of their stuff.
At this moment, I feel I could give up on mobility. Just have a home and a job, and go on holiday once a year, like normal people...