Ch-ch-ch-ch-Changes

When I was a kid, we'd pack up and move every year. My dad would come home sometime around April and tell us what Army base we were headed for next. I moved something like 14 times in my childhood. Everyone asks me how it felt to move so much. I didn't know better. All the other Army kids I knew moved too. I figured that's the way everyone lived. I learned otherwise as I got older but the fact is it felt normal to me. It still does.

I know genes are powerful things, but I believe in nurture too. And moving every year had a powerful effect on me. I learned how to make friends quickly. And I learned how to forget friends just as quickly. The former has been a huge asset. The latter has been a curse I have not yet learned how to kick.

I think the gypsy thing is part of me. After five great years at our townhouse in NYC, we are moving. Not because we have to. Because we want to. The Gotham Gal and I have never lived anywhere as long and it's time for another scene in this play we call life.

Tonight is the last night in our home. The moving company comes tomorrow and stuff starts pouring out of the home making it inhabitable. We'll be in flux most of this week and hopefully land safe and sound in our new home by the end of the week.

People say that moving is one of the most stressful things in life. I suppose it's true. But to me it's like taking a bath, a cleansing feeling.

I guess change is a matter of taste. Some hate it. Others love it. I am in the latter camp. Ch-ch-ch-ch-Changes.

Changes - David Bowie

Comments

[andy]

Fred,

Great post...
My wife has wanted to move to her dream house for 3 months. I've been fighting her, and not ready to embrace change....

I have been on the fence, starting a new business, traveling, focus, etc....

This post by you, just inspired the Real Estate market to generate a sale...Wilson Style.

It's about change, and cleansing -- thanks for making me look at it in that personal lense, you hit me in my heart, with both hope, and a fair amount of guilt.

Rock on. Good luck with the move.

Andy

PS. Thanks for the inspiration, I'll be sure to call you when I'm knee deep in moving the stereo equipment and the 1200 DEAD bootlegs that line my home office wall.

[Misty Olen]

Thanks for this post. I've wondered at times if something was wrong with me because I seem to want to move every three years. I like the change, but it is scary, especially since I have kids now. I'm glad to hear you post about the positive aspects of moving for kids (skills in making friends) because I have wondered if I am permanently damaging them by moving too much.

Good luck in your move and thanks again for the post.

[Ryan Coleman]

Nice post Fred... know the feeling as I was a "corporate brat" as a kid (although thankfully our moves were usually every 3 years).

Of course I went and married a girl who basically grew up in the same house her whole life though. :)

I'm staying in one spot a bit longer than in the past but I still get that continual itch to move on to somewhere new.

[Jamie]

PS. Thanks for the inspiration, I'll be sure to call you when I'm knee deep in moving ... and the 1200 DEAD bootlegs that line my home office wall.

I will take them off your hands for you. I lost all my dead tapes twice now.

Having been in the military, I know what you mean. I find myself needing to compulsively move and/or change my routines every so often just to keep things fresh.

[Giordano]

Hi Fred,

sharing the experience with you: tomorrow I´m moving into my new flat in Singapore.

Since I´ve been moving around due to business a lot in the last years (Milan, Rome, Paris, Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo and now Singapore), I´ve learned to travel light. Therefore, all I´m bringing with me now are a couple of big suitcases of clothes, and one full of books. The rest has been sold or left behind, as usual :)

Love the nomadic life!

Cheers,
Giordano

[Ivan]

Where I live on one side is the widower of a couple. The woman was almost born in the house not long after it was built - after they married during the war they rented part of it from her parents and ended up buying it. He will only leave it in a coffin. I have copies of photos he took on VE day of all the kids dressed up in the street - wonderful (and NO cars).
On the other side, a couple moved in a year ago, tore the house to bits, added rooms, took walls out, made a funky modern house - and now they're moving out next week.
And us, the middle generation in the middle? We've been here five years. I'm ready to move on, but no idea whether we will as all the kids are in school etc.
BTW Fred, you don't say how far you are moving, but I guess not so far. If you stay close, how much difference does that make?

[Ada]

Good post for the nomadic... I am still always perplexed by the question where are you from? The longest place I've ever lived was six years and that was a foreign country. But yes, I am also pretty good at making new friends... and occaisionally I keep them too.

:-),
Ada

[scotty the body]

Whoa! As someone who moved across the country and then to a different continent in 6 months, I can assure you that I don't envy the stress and labor, but I certainly understand your comments about wiping the slate clean. It feels good, for sure. Even if I were to move back to Atlanta right now, my house would be uncluttered and our possessions would be streamlined.

Another interesting new thing that came up during my last move: how to treat your digital assets. In my case, I bought 3 or 4 500 GB firewire drives and made copies of *everything* important -- my music library, photos, documents, etc. and carried them with me in my carry on luggage.

Not sure if that is necessary for cross-town moves, but when my computers were in a boat, I felt like it was necessary.

[Sandy Sabean]

It's as exciting as it is stressful! We're finally moving into our new place this week after a gut renovation which started out as a "updating". We left our old place after 15 years.Very hard. We've been in a sublet for 7-months that has a pool, a gym and a great neighborhood. Now we're sad to leave here! No more late night runs across the street to Gray's Papaya :(

But we're looking forward to our new neighborhood uptown and our new Sonos! If you need a good sound system guy for your new place, I got one.

Best of luck to you and GG.
Sandy

[Jed Christiansen]

Good luck with your move!

When I was very young, I had the same kind of experiences. Our family's moving record was:

6 houses, 5 cities, 4 states, in less than 3 years. By the time I was in 9th grade it was my 8th school. (And then I decided to go into the Navy!)

Now that I'm out of the Navy, I realise how much easier it was to keep clean and organised when I was constantly moving. I'm looking forward to changing scenes soon, as well, with this nice side-effect.

[Lindsay Campbell]

My family moved from Boston, to Northern CA to Southern CA to Maryland, all before I was 11 years old. I continued the pattern moving to Philadelphia, Northern CA, Colorado and to four different neighborhoods in New York, within ten years. Moving often is a way of life and a way of seeing the world. Moving's made me much more accepting of change and much less attached to possessions then I would be otherwise. And the thing I've noticed about friends is this: I may have the intention of keeping all of the friends I've moved away from, but they've got to have the same intention or else it won't even last a month. Whenever possible make friends with other gypsies. That's my advice. :)

[JayR]

Each of my wife and I lived in the same house (other than for college and law school) from when we were toddlers until we got married, and we're pretty much the same way now. I satisfy my wanderlust and need to cleanse by changing jobs. :)

[michael]

where u headin?

[DV Henkel-Wallace]

I know the feeling. My wife and I moved 10 times in the first 8 years of marriage. Now after living in two houses (in succession) each for about three years it feels...strange.

But my heavy phase of moving started around '80 and from that point on most of my friends were online, so the "dropping friends" problem never really happened.

[Tony Alva]

I can't imagine a cooler place than the one you're leaving, but I imagine you've either found it already, or will create it.

"I learned how to make friends quickly. And I learned how to forget friends just as quickly."

If it weren't for the friends I have made and KEPT throughout all of our families military mandated moves, I think I'd have been pretty bitter about it. Even now when I'm asked to travel on business the first thought that goes through my head is "Who do I know that lives there?" so I can go visit. I have forgotten very few of my friends and those that I have I have used the power of the internet to them tracked down and reconnect.

[jackson]

I think it averages out at about every three years actually - in Germany it was every year, before that you'd know better than I, but with our time at West Point (me 11 years - you 7), that brings the average up a bit.

It is as you say, Gypsies for life.

I've lived in 32 places, and have had 29 jobs.

[Jimbo]

Fred- Assuming you are finally moving after selling your townhome at 11 West 10th in New York City in November of 2006 that was listed for $37.5 million?

Just up for a change eh ? hehehehehehee

[Nathaniel McNamara]

Congrats on the move. Are you moving out of the city for a suburban lifestyle or to another corner of Manhattan?