So, even though we did not end up moving forward with our house (see Our First Home Buying Experience), we are still moving to another apartment this weekend. We are moving into a two bedroom/two bath with a friend of ours for the next year. Definitely a mental transition to go from thinking you’re moving into a beautiful, brand new, spacious home, to a two bedroom apartment in the same complex you’re currently in, but things could be worse.
In fact, this situation has shown itself to be a pretty big blessing in many ways. We’re all about to be able to save more money in the next year than we thought originally, and we have more time to find the house that’s meant for us. Plus we get to live with our friend, who’s super great, so I think it’ll be a fun experience. We also get a beautiful view of the mountains from the new apartment, so that’s a plus too.
Regardless of all the pros, I have many many mixed emotions around moving. And that’s not exclusive to this moving experience at all. I feel this way EVERY. SINGLE. TIME. Even if I’m ready to move, it still stirs in me such a bittersweet feeling that I just can’t shake.
I love the apartment we’re in now. Sure, it’s small (one bed/one bath), and inconvenient that the closet is connected to the bathroom and annoying that the bathroom has a sliding door that Remi is able to push open with her nose so you can never “go” in peace, but this is also the first and only place we’ve lived since we moved to Denver. And so much has changed since then.
I remember walking into this apartment for the first time in October 2019. I was emotional and exhausted and when I walked through the door, it only got worse. We had left our friends and our whole lives behind in San Diego, only to come here and be met with an empty, cold apartment, and no friends to be found.
I was also in my last term of grad school and was working full time, and the whole month prior we’d gone to a wedding, crossed the country to visit family, travelled to Bali for a week, all the while having our stuff moved to a new state, working and going to school. I was a WRECK to say the least. Plus I am EXTREMELY sentimental and every goodbye felt like a punch to the stomach.
But, since then, this place has become one of the homiest places I’ve known. We’ve decorated and made memories here and have grown so much since that first night. We’ve grown apart from friends and grown closer to others, developed new habits, new hobbies, adventured, gotten a pup and a kitten, learned to cook better, blasted music on Saturday mornings while making breakfast, gotten to know ourselves better… SO much has happened here. We’ve done so much growing and I feel like an entirely different human than the one who walked in the door all those months ago. So wild how quickly things can change.
This reminds me of one of my favorite sayings, “Isn’t it funny how day to day nothing changes, but when you look back everything is different?” It’s funny how life happens like that. One moment you feel one way about your situation, and then life continues and you begin to feel differently, and you don’t even realize the change until you take a moment to reflect and look back. As Andy from the Office says, “I wish there was a way to know you’re in the good old days before you’ve actually left them.”
GAH. All the feels right now haha I’ve spent many nights, right before bed, staring out into our living room/kitchen area, looking back to our cozy cave of a bedroom, and just feeling so freaking grateful that we are here.
Sure, it felt a little touch and go in the beginning, but I ended up loving every moment in this place. And the other funny thing is that I know I’ll feel the same about the next place too. That’s just kind of how things work. You may be really happy where you are, but change is imminent and so so necessary. Phases never last forever, and, though we may feel resistance to new stages at first, we almost always end up discovering that what we had feared had no basis at all, and that we evolve and adapt better than we ever could have imagined. We can appreciate the last stage and maybe would have stayed there longer, had we had the choice, but we’re so happy to be in the next stage because it’s pretty great too.
Resistance and surrender, resistance and surrender.. that’s all there is to it.
When was the last time you had to move? What were your feelings around it? Please share your stories, I’d love to hear them!
<3,
Sarah
If you enjoyed this post, you might also like: Cures for the Post-Trip Blues.
Sarah,
I can totally relate and I think focusing on the growth that will happen once the dust has settled is what we have to do to keep an optimistic mindset. Moving to Japan was definitely one of the most difficult things I have ever done and remains difficult – I must be growing a lot! Lol. We are looking forward to moving again next year, hopefully much closer to family and back to the good ole’ US of A. Cannot wait to read more about your adventures in the next apartment.
Thank you for sharing your story, it would be quite a growing experience moving out of the country- I commend you! I hope you are able to move where you want when that time comes and that, until then, you enjoy this phase as much as possible. Who knows, maybe you’ll end up missing it more than you think ☺️💁🏼♀️