KT (Kayte) Walsh
CREATIVE  PRODUCER | WRITER | MEDIA SPECIALIST 

Bottom line: Moving sucks. The mental gymnastics of sifting for gold in your price bracket and pulling the trigger on a move is gravy compared to actually packing all your shit up and doing the deed. You might not know what you are getting into, so I've laid out this handy guide: 10 Emotional Stages of Moving

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Stage 1: Blind Positivity

You think, "there isn't that much, this is totally doable." You start breaking rooms and closets down in your mind by time. 2 hours for the office, 3 hours for the bedroom. It will take a day--day and a half. Then you start taking the kitchen apart...

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Stage 2: Completely Overwhelmed

Hungry, crabby, and only part of the way through you have the realization, "there is 4-10 years bad consumer behavior in here, this is going to take FOREVER!"

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Stage 3: Level 10 Tetris Master

There is a point where you start getting good at packing boxes. Like really good. So full of your own packing self you choreograph the perfect end zone dance after fitting an entire bathroom cabinet neatly in one box. 

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Stage 4: Consider Asceticism

When you look at something and ask yourself why you have saved and moved nonessential mementos several times. Resisting the sudden urge to throw everything out. Then resisting the urge to redecorate all decor and abandon everything in that mocha color you fell in love with 6 years ago. I say 'resisting' because you already hired the movers and empty rooms with blank walls is still too bleak at stage 4.

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Stage 5: The Thick Mental Haze

The realization that you've already packed something that you need right away, so you have to unpack that box and then repack it again. But you're out of your level 10 Tetris master zone. You can't think straight because all your stuff is turned on its side. Dressing yourself is a major chore and you find yourself wandering into rooms and forgetting what you went in there for. 

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Stage 6: The Final Push

That moment when you open the first box in your new place and realize you have to do it all over again in reverse. You are basically pressing the rewind button on the VHS of the last 48 hours of your life. 

 

Stage 7: Bizzaro House

Same stuff, different space. It looks like your house, it feels like your house, it smells like you a little, but something is off. 

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Stage 8: Breaking Sanity

 The first time you use the kitchen after everything is put away and realize that you don't know where anything is in your own house. New habits are being born every moment, hope they are good ones. 

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Stage 9: Superiority Complex 

Everything in your new place is so much better than your old place. Except this, and that. So there are some flaws, but it's really above and beyond and you're going to try to fool yourself into believing it's perfection at the highest scale. 

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Stage 10: Elation of Finality 

That moment when it's all put away. When the last piece of furniture drops, or you turn your keys into your old landlord. Whatever that moment is for you, it's like school's out for the summer. You receive the sudden rush of energy, ride it high for a few hours. Then take a nap.