Nicky Rennie: They don’t call it moving on for nothing

House packed, moved and unpacked in 1.5 hours. Photo / 123rf

OPINION

If I were to rate the jobs I would like least, my gold-medal winner would be the role of a security guard who had to stand outside a bank all day. That would be followed closely by being a furniture removal person. In fact, scratch that, they both win the title.

If you’re lucky, you have to move only every few years, or if you’re even luckier, never, but spare a thought for these superheroes because they do it every day. Every day, packing up everybody’s everything, putting it on a truck and then unpacking it at the other end. My back hurts just thinking about it.

I had two such superheroes help me out last week and in chatting with them, they said there are two types of people when it comes to moving. The ones who do nothing, get nothing ready and leave 100 per cent of the job to the movers; then there are people like me who just about burst a foo-foo valve moving as much as I can to the new place so there is less for them to do.

Whilst you may think I’m simply a kind soul, there is also a motivating factor behind my generous gesture. I was paying them by the hour for their manpower and their truck. The more I could move in my trusty Suzuki Swift the cheaper it would be for me. By the time they arrived, they had to move only about 10 big items.

The rest were all done and I was ready to fall down with exhaustion. House packed, moved and unpacked in one and a half hours.

That gives you a rough idea of how many trips I made in my trusty Swift. I was offered help from friends with utes, but declined. As someone who is OCD, I have a system and unpack and place things in my new abode as I go.

It makes me feel I have a little more control of the situation and not quite so overwhelmed, which is exactly what I was feeling.

My daughter subscribes to the “do nothing” approach to moving.

She thought if she pretended it wasn’t happening, then it wouldn’t happen. She’s gone down south for a few weeks and she’ll be coming back to a totally different home. I say home because that’s what I’m good at making and that’s what I’ve had to remind her (and myself) of.

She and I both feel sad about leaving where we were living because it was the home she came to live in when we reconnected, after five years apart.

It’s not lost on either of us and it’s been hard to let it go for that very reason. We created new memories in that house and now that it’s just a shell, I feel very melancholy and emotional.

There’s only one thing for it. Put my big-girl pants on, take a concrete pill and make new memories.

They don’t call it moving on for nothing.