On moving boxes and mixed emotions

Why (in my experience) there will always be grief in growth.

I moved this week. For the first time in five years. If you know me, you know what a big change¹ this is. If you don’t, you can trust that I’m feeling sentimental.

I’ve moved a lot in my twenties, from college dorms to Disney college housing to home rentals and temporary rooms. I think I’ve counted eight moves over the last decade (give or take) and still, moving never gets easier. Well, aside from hiring movers — I’ll never not do that again.

At one point in my life, I thought I’d be a missionary. I romanticized the ability to live in far off places, unattached to places and people. I thought it was some sign of maturity to move on without mourning, without giving a second thought to some sort of change. And without sadness, no less! I could only imagine.

As I’ve moved around, I realized how far that is from my reality. It turns out I’m very attached to places, even when their times have come to pass. My therapist calls me a romantic, which means I see everything — people and places — as sacred. She reminds me this is a good thing, too, although I’m working to believe her. Yet her point rings true: if all things are sacred, of course homes will feel holy, too.

I’m coming to terms with all this as a sit and write in my new place. My back is sore from the numbers of boxes I’ve moved. My eyes are still a bit puffy from all the tears I’ve shed. Even though this move came at the perfect time, in a preferred city, into a near-perfect place, I can’t help but grieve when change happens. Not because it’s bad. But because there’s always grief in growth.

I’ve been thinking about moving for awhile, but back in December, I felt a real change coming down the pike. I felt a prompting to get curious (more like a calling than a command) and to go closer to that restlessness. So I got a realtor and a mortgage calculator. I crunched some numbers and followed Zillow closely. And with that combination of savings and some holy nudging, I was able to find in a spot that I can finally call my own. I lovingly call it The Treehouse, which though it’s still getting settled, already lives up to its name.

And yet, I’m sad. Annoyingly sad. Not because moving is the wrong decision or because transitions aren’t inevitable. But because change is still hard and homes are still holy, and I’m learning that regardless of my readiness of maturation, I still need a second to sit with it all.

I think of this change sort of like a repotting. If you garden or grow things at all, you know that there comes a time when a plant gets too big. The roots need room to spread out and the leaves need more space. So for the sake of the plant’s health, it eventually needs a bigger pot.

That’s what moving feels like to me. I loved my old apartment, truly. I loved its shag carpets and big, bright windows. I loved living in close community, through Covid and community groups and countless Chiefs parties. There has been fun. There have been fights. There has been so much sweet life filling the place. I know it’s just four walls at the end of the day, but to view it as a sacred season still feels like the right thing to do.

I realized, back in December, I was already starting to grieve. Below is some of my prayerful processing as I felt the grief in the midst of growth:

I think I’m grieving that I’m not 24 anymore. I’m not 24 in need of a soft place to land. I’m not 25 in desperate grief or in need of friends. I’m not 25 and beginning a relationship with a boy I thought would go somewhere, and deeply in need of friends and social circles to pick me up after that loss. I’m not 26 anymore and in need to prove myself. I’m not 27 and needing the cheap rent in order to travel. I’m not 28 and really settling into my friends and my community. And I’m only 29 for a few more days, realizing my life has split, but not in an unfortunate way; in a flourishing one.

This apartment gave me all the guts and roots I needed to stand on my own two feet. This apartment brought new beginnings and Covid quarantines. It brought a safe space for prayers and pity parties and pillows to cling to when boys broke my heart or broke their promises. This place left me with a pathway to all parts of the city. It dropped me near little parks I’ve loved and parking lots I practiced skateboarding in. It offered me walking paths on my good days and bad, summer days, and winter, and all the seasons in between.

It gave us watch parties and theme parties and sleepovers with friends and family, offering safe places for small groups or sisters to hide away or hammer away at the karaoke machine. We have been blessed with amenities like pools and workout rooms and chimneys and balconies (facing trees!). We (almost always) had enough parking for anybody who wanted to attend, enough bathrooms for people to share, enough space for all of us to grow privately among the public spaces, and enough width to cover our wants as well as needs.

But I also know I’ve grown. And bigger plants need bigger pots, I’ve heard. I feel I’m grown too large to share space with flowers who have also grown to wider widths. I am already feeling sentimental — sad to this apartment off someday. But I am also grateful for what You’ve done to assist in this little garden; this greenhouse 3B.

There are surely things I won’t miss about the apartment. I won’t miss the loud dryer that drove nuts. I won’t miss the small fridge they refused to replace. I especially won’t miss the dozen wasps and I had to catch and release in my own Christian apartment.

But I will miss my home for half of my twenties. I’ll miss coming home to hallway conversations with friends and the mismatched living room furniture. I’ll miss the walls that watched me go through heartbreak and the porch nights that helped me process my pain. I’ll miss the little patch of warm carpet in the winters (where we all took the occasional nap) and writing corners and coming home to gatherings that I had no part in planning, just appreciating their presence.

That’s just grief, I think, in all its godly feelings. Repotting isn’t without mess just as moving isn’t without mourning. There will be a both-and to all changes; a gratitude for what’s coming and a grief for what once was.

My grandfather always said “life is a series of changes,” and he’s right. Change is inevitable. But what we don’t always account for is the mess of muddled feelings that happen in the aftermath. I’m learning to be okay with that. To let those big feelings (like those big roots) breathe. It doesn’t mean change isn’t sad, but that life is sacred. We’re allowed to be affected by people and places that matter.

It’s easy to get distracted when there are a million things going on with a move, but on closing day, I felt the gentle reminder from God that He was, in fact, the one who first cared for my soul and soil. Finding this place wasn’t luck, in my opinion. Nor was it God’s way or the highway. Instead, it felt like an invitation to be repotted, if I wanted. A place for my leaves to stretch and my roots to grow.

I’m reminded that even now, amidst all the memories and mess of moving, there is still growth to come. I will not be the same person in another five years or ten or twenty. All growth takes time, and all grief will accompany it. Life is a series of changes, but that does not mean we are alone or unaffected by its nature. All we can do today is the same as every day: take root, stretch out, and see to life as change comes.

I’ll leave us both with this benediction: may way we be surprised by what’s sacred, and may we make room for what sprouts anew.

1. With change comes a lot change ($$$) if ya know what I mean (pun intended). Since I’ve never had a wedding or shower thrown for me before, I created a home registry if you’re interested in helping contribute toward building my home. Just ask!