The Stages of Packing & Moving
1. The Optimism Phase
It always starts with confidence. The road to hell is paved with good intentions… and neatly labelled bins.
“It’s not that much stuff.”
“This’ll be easy - 90 minutes, max.”
“I’ll pack everything neatly, label the boxes, maybe even color code.”
Maybe we should be honest with ourselves from the beginning. Setting the right expectations can go a long way in any facet of life.
2. The Reality Check
Suddenly the space is shrinking. That closet was a black hole. The storage unit is definitely smaller than you remember. Did I just run out of boxes? Cut to me sweating, whispering apologies to an overstuffed duffel bag and shoving more into it anyways... praying the zippers hold up.
“Why do I have so many cables?”
“Do I really need this?”
“Wait… is this even mine?”
At some point, the movers drop a box— one you know has glass in it — and the facade of perfection is shattered. Instead of investigating, you just… don’t. You stay in the other room. Everything is fine…
3. The Free-for-All Phase
Intentions give way to gravity.
You stop carefully wrapping things and start tossing them in whatever container is closest. A blender gets cozy with a candle. A sock lives next to a framed photo. It’s all going in the same direction anyway.
And this is how it goes. It seems like very few people can avoid this. Moving is a special shared experience in that regard.
By the end, it’s not just a move — it’s a transition. We run straight out of the house, slam the door behind us, and drive off like it never happened.
4. The Moment That Matters
But this time, I didn’t rush (much).
I paused. Stood in the empty house longer than I needed to. Let the silence fill the space I was leaving. Let the dust settle — literally and figuratively.
Because packing isn’t just a task. This is a process of appreciating the transition, and I wanted to give it the time it deserved.
And the exit — chaotic as it may be — deserves a moment. A glance back before the leap forward.
Moving, like most changes, never goes exactly to plan.
We start with order. We end in a pile of half-labeled chaos.
But somewhere in between, we learn to let go — of control, of stuff, of how we thought it would all go.
And that, I believe, is the lesson for me at this inflection point — not to control the process, but to move through it.
