Moving and Moving On
It’s right up there with death and divorce on the stress scale. Moving to a new home, whether across town or across the country, is a tension-producing experience.
Is it any wonder? Start with the endless list of worries for homeowners: “Can we afford a bigger house?” “Will we be able to sell our current house?”
Add to these a to-do list as long as the escrow agreement. Throw in the prospect of packing (and then unpacking) everything in the house, and you have the makings of high anxiety.
But once the movers have hauled the last crate off the van and you’ve thrown down the welcome mat, your worries are over, right? Wrong. For many, the emotional stress of a move is just beginning.
“A lot of people assume that the hassles and never-ending to-do lists are what make moving stressful,” said Kristine Jacquin, a professor of psychology at the Union Institute, a private university in Los Angeles. “In fact, any life change, especially a change as important as where you live, will create stress,” she said.
“With a move, the routines of your life are upset,” said Susan Ginsberg, a consultant on parenting and work-life issues and author of “Family Wisdom” (Columbia University Press, 1996). “You suddenly have to reestablish everything.
“You’re faced with everything from finding a new cleaners to finding new schools and baby-sitters to making new friends. You lose some identity in the process.”
John Rhoades, a professor of cultural anthropology at St. John Fisher College in New York, said that familiar interactions, things as simple as a wave from the neighbor across the street or an inquiry about your health from the grocery clerk, create community and help form identities.
“Humans are social animals. We depend on interaction and the feeling that we are among people who have some stake in our well-being. The neighborhood is a very important unit.”
Sharon Whatley of Santa Ana couldn’t agree more. After facing an empty nest when her children moved out, she and her husband scaled down to a smaller house. Even though the new house was just four miles from their home of 25 years, it felt “so foreign, so far away.”
Part of Whatley’s daily routine in the old neighborhood was going to the mailbox and waving to neighbors, chatting with friends. When Whatley found herself cut off from these daily interactions, her routine was shattered and her identity threatened.
“I suddenly didn’t know what to do with myself,” Whatley said.
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In a move, “all of the little things that we take for granted are suddenly pulled out from under us,” said Jeffrey Hunter, a psychologist with UCLA Extension.
In fact, it’s those little things that often present the most challenging adjustments. How you make your morning coffee, where you hang your bathrobe, how many steps it takes to move from the kitchen to the dining room.
Whatley said that she would often wake in the morning and think, “Where am I?” “You wake up every morning and nothing is familiar. It’s disconcerting.”
When children or a job change are involved in the move, the transition is even more complicated.
Vicky Steele hoped that she would not be affected when her employer, Countrywide Home Loans, decided to move corporate employees from Pasadena to Calabasas. A year ago, Steele, vice president of financial marketing, received official notification that she would be part of the move.
Until Steele sold her Pasadena home, she endured a 30-mile “killer commute.” Her pre-move stress was complicated by her concern over the quality of the school district for her two children and “throwing myself on the mercy of the school district” when escrow in the new Oak Park home closed just days before school started.
Steele kept emotionally grounded before, during and after the difficult move by maintaining realistic expectations and accepting that the move was about trade-offs.
She was anxious about changing schools, but her children’s new elementary school is highly rated and is in the neighborhood instead of a few miles away.
She traded a 1930s, Spanish-style home for a 20-year-old house in a neighborhood that “just doesn’t have the charm of Pasadena” but is “chockablock full of kids” who can safely play in the neighborhood.
“Slowly we’re getting into the neighborhood,” Steele said. “It just takes time.”
Steele also managed to avoid the “failed strategies of transition” model developed by Kyle Prewitt, a Yale psychiatrist.
The first strategy is denial or detachment, pulling back from the situation and not dealing directly with issues.
Another “failed strategy” is to distort reality by either bad-mouthing or over-glorifying the former residence.
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Finally, many people in transition will attempt to become distracted, hiding at work or the movies, to avoid dealing with the change.
Author Ginsburg said people should not be surprised if “people around you are stressed out. They get crazy and act in very uncharacteristic ways. People who are neat get sloppy; people who are easygoing become uptight.
“Your expectations have to be realistic. Things will not be perfect. They may not turn out the way that you think. There will be a lot of bumps along the road.”
As difficult as the transition was for Whatley, she is now positive about the change.
“At first the unfamiliarity really jarred me, but I eventually learned that it’s all about letting go, on all levels. It’s such a growing experience. Moving on is exciting and refreshing.”
Susan Carrier is an Altadena freelance writer.
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Some Strategies for Coping With the Move
Before the Move
* Involve the entire family in planning. Help children feel that they have some stake in their futures by including them in as much of the moving process as possible. Children can be involved in house-hunting, bedroom selection, school visits and decisions about what to pack and what to give away.
* Talk about how the move will affect family members. For adults and children, reassurance starts before the move. Younger children will have concerns about their pets and possessions; older ones about their social lives, school and activities. Discuss specifics, both positive and negative, and how moving often involves trade-offs.
Set aside time for closure rituals: Saying goodbye to the house, neighborhood and friends is an important part of moving.
Make sure friends and neighbors have your new address and phone number. To immortalize the experience, create a videotape of the old neighborhood and friends, make a scrapbook of the old house or leave behind a time capsule for a future family to discover.
* Explore the new neighborhood. If possible, spend a Saturday and familiarize the family with the new neighborhood prior to the move. Find out what recreational facilities are nearby. For example, are there tennis courts, swimming pools, bike paths, movie theaters, ice cream shops or parks?
During the Move
* Try to stay calm. Nervousness has a way of catching hold and multiplying among family members.
* Pack a separate “survival package.” Bedding, towels, pajamas, toiletries, snacks and, for children, stuffed animals and books will ease the transition on the first night.
After the Move
* Make the new house yours. Simple acts like hanging up a personalized address plate or planting a new tree help “mark the territory.” One woman confessed, “My friends thought I was crazy because our house, a fixer-upper, needed a thousand repairs, and yet one of my first projects was hiring an artist to paint an original design on the stair risers.”
* Blend the old with the new. “All of us need a balance of change and familiarity in our lives,” said Jeffrey Hunter, a psychologist with UCLA Extension. With a move, that balance between the old and the new has gotten “out of whack.”
Incorporate the familiar by keeping in touch with old friends, setting out favorite familiar objects and continuing as much routine as possible.
* Reestablish routines as soon as possible. With lots to do and little time to do it, the temptation to abandon familiar routines is natural. But the sooner routines are reestablished, especially when children are involved, the sooner a sense of order is restored.
* Set aside time for relaxation and recreation. Moving has the potential of taking over every aspect of a life, emotionally and mentally. Keep the move from becoming all-consuming by taking time for fun.
* Keep expectations realistic. The psychological adjustment period can take as long as one year. Be prepared for emotional ups and downs, good times and bad.
Other Resources
* “Goodbye-Hello: Everything You Need to Help Your Child When Your Family Moves.” This kit is designed to help parents help their children navigate through the emotionally choppy waters of a move. May be ordered at (888) 2PPACKS for $19.95 plus shipping.
* The Relocation Wizard (https://www.homefair.com): Type in the date you’re moving, answer a few easy questions and, presto, this Web site supplies a timeline of what to do and when to do it before the move date.
Helpful Books for Children
Picture Books
“Alexander, Who’s Not (Do You Hear Me? I Mean It!) Going to Move” by Judith Viorst (Atheneum, 1995).
“Boomer’s Big Day” by Constance W. McGeorge (Chronicle, 1994).
“The Moving Book: A Kid’s Survival Guide” by Gabriel Davis (Little, Brown, 1996).
“The Berenstain Bears’ Moving Day” by Stan and Jan Berenstain (Random House, 1981).
“Good-bye/Hello” by Barbara Hazen (Atheneum, 1995).
“The Leaving Morning” by Angela Johnson (Orchard Books, 1996).
“Little Monster’s Moving Day” by Mercer Mayer (Scholastic, 1995).
“Gila Monsters Meet You at the Airport” by Marjorie Weinman Sharmat (MacMillian, 1980).
“Lily” by Abigail Thomas (Henry Holt, 1997).
Middle Grades
“Amber Brown Is Not a Crayon” by Paula Danziger (Putnam, 1994).
“My Fabulous New Life” by Sheila Greenwald (Harcourt Brace, 1993).
“The Kid in the Red Jacket” by Barbara Park (Knopf, 1987).
“Flip Flop Girl” by Katherine Paterson (Puffin Books, 1996).
“Hold Fast to Dreams” by Andrea Davis Pinkney (Morrow, 1995).
“Nothing Grows Here” by Jean Thesman (HarperCollins, 1994).
