This Christmas I’m going back to the house where I grew up. It’s been more than 15 years since I moved out, and so it is now very definitely my parents’ house and not my own – but part of me will always think of it as home.
No one enjoys moving house, but I’ve wondered whether having that childhood address for so long is part of why I hate the idea of moving so much. Moving is a huge disruption. It means putting life and work and money on hold. It means setting up the internet again.
But packing up and then unpacking somewhere new is a fact of life, and something we all have to put up with as circumstances change. Work or schools change, jobs change, families change. These changes are so often coupled with a new address. Sometimes, the only thing you can control is what you take with you.
Let’s Play Unpacking – Lo-fi Games to Relax to Watch on YouTube
I remember my first move, to uni, with just a car-load of old possessions plus a new set of crockery from Morrisons. I didn’t spend long choosing what to take – it was more about the sense of freedom for what I could leave behind, a need to shed many of the childhood belongings I still retained.