Have you ever found yourself in a Big Mess from moving house? From losing a home? From losing your bearings within yourself and the world?Ā
Ā
What was the mess made of? THINGS? Memories? Emotions? Death? Money matters? Relationship in tatters?
Ā
If you are facing the chaos of a house move, declutter, or even a soul search with no need to move; if they feel overwhelming, scary, heart-breaking, this-is-me-and-my-life-disintegrating, read on.
Or, rather, tear a leaf after leaf, peel a layer after layer of your relationship to the things youāll find around you.
Ā
This book is about our relationship to possessions, the loss of home and the search for one's true home, and how to use the physical chaos of a house move to sort through some of the inner psychological chaos.
It is based on the authorās experience of 21 house moves (or 40, depending on how you count).
Ā
It will leave you feeling freer, lighter, braver, and more at Home, wherever you are.
Ā
It doesnāt matter if you are moving house or remain where you live until your dying day.Ā
Ā
The house moving is optional in finding your True Home.Ā
Ā
YOU making a move, again and again, is not.Ā
Have you ever found yourself in a Big Mess from moving house? From losing a home? From losing your bearings within yourself and the world?Ā
Ā
What was the mess made of? THINGS? Memories? Emotions? Death? Money matters? Relationship in tatters?
Ā
If you are facing the chaos of a house move, declutter, or even a soul search with no need to move; if they feel overwhelming, scary, heart-breaking, this-is-me-and-my-life-disintegrating, read on.
Or, rather, tear a leaf after leaf, peel a layer after layer of your relationship to the things youāll find around you.
Ā
This book is about our relationship to possessions, the loss of home and the search for one's true home, and how to use the physical chaos of a house move to sort through some of the inner psychological chaos.
It is based on the authorās experience of 21 house moves (or 40, depending on how you count).
Ā
It will leave you feeling freer, lighter, braver, and more at Home, wherever you are.
Ā
It doesnāt matter if you are moving house or remain where you live until your dying day.Ā
Ā
The house moving is optional in finding your True Home.Ā
Ā
YOU making a move, again and again, is not.Ā
Have you had your life crash and spill all over the floor, fragments leaking dark red blood and thick black terror, a small puddle for a start but spreading,
spreading
SPREADING?
What is it that got wrecked, disfigured, ripped apart, burnt
to the ground?
LOVE? Family? Home?
The humming, sweet routines of the life youāve long
known?
Your vision? Mission? Job?
Health? The time you (vaguely) counted to have left?
MEANING? Purpose?
Truth? TRUST? The stability of the earthās crust?
The certain answers to the WHO ARE YOU?, what you can and
shall and would or would never ever do?
How badly did you break?
Are you whole again, or for the first time ever? The extraordinary gift of some descents into darkness, a gift claimed by so few, yet always there if you refuse to leave without it but refuse to dwell in darkness too? Or, when you undress and touch the seams of truth, are you, rather, superglued?
Have you ever had your life dumped on the floor, this time literally? Drawers pulled out, wardrobe doors flung open
piles of clothes
misshapen hangers
slanting books
scattered papers
bike pump
hammer
smiling sheep
sponges
brushes
cream clean Cif
tangled cables
seaside mug
wrapping paper
filthy rug ā
all tripping, slipping hazards,
calling out to you,
calendar declaring your move-out day is tomorrow,
realism demanding it be a week away?
Have you ever felt total disbelief at the amount of possessions youāve accumulated? Started sorting from one pile or cupboard only to decide itās too difficult or undefinable, picked the next, then next, then next, until you returned to the first?
Have you spoken to yourself coolly, rationally that it will all be fine; motivationally, passionately that you wield magic powers and expansive time, while pushing, pushing, pushing back the flood of panic rising in the holes between the words?
Have you made dozens of donation and recycling trips, yet still tied a tight knot around a black bin bag of perfectly usable things?
What did you do with the flowerpots?
The sheets you slept in on your last night?
Oh, you didnāt sleep? You thought youād be finished by 4 p.m., then midnight, then 3 a.m., then you met the end at sunrise, mopping floors, red capillaries refusing to return home to the white sclera, bed never slept in one last time, a feeling strangely resembling that of separating from a lover without having made love one last time?
I hope you still noticed that that was the most beautiful sunrise youāve seen in this house. I hope your coffee machine or kettle was not packed, or belonged to the house, and you could have a farewell drink. I hope you laughed (hysterically?) that never-ending night and blazing morning, even if you cried too.
Whether youāve had your life on the floor one way or the other, or both, welcome.
Does this book belong to your library?
This is a book about using the need to sort through physical baggage so as to shift emotional baggage. It is about tolerating material and psychological mess for longer than comfortable so as to move on feeling lighter. It digs deep into my possessions and soul in the hope of showing you new ways to dig deep into yours.
Itās a book for those who want to leave with the rucksack on their back only or need a truck for their possessions. I write of both. Iāve tried both.
Itās a book about house moves which are responsible to the environment, objects and the makers of objects; considerate of the less fortunate; adventurous and cost-efficient. It is about trips to charity shops, recycling facilities and outside of your comfort zone. It is about the lives and happiness of things, our planet and the less well-off. Those make house moving far more difficult than throwing away everything you no longer need. Yet there is nothing easier than living in accordance with your values.
Itās a book about house moves which light up the inner powerhouse of energy. That donāt tire you. That let you sleep all you want to sleep and keep your holidays for holidays.
Itās a book which will help you, at moving in, open boxes as if you were decades younger, inner child rummaging through his or her treasures. āYeeeeey, Iāve been waiting for you to turn up!ā āIād forgotten I had you!ā
It is a book about house moves which you begin to miss.
It will give you a lot. It will ask for a lot.
It will ask you to feel what you feel and think what you think about the objects you own. Ideally, every single one of them. This takes time. Focus. Honesty. Sometimes it hurts.
It will ask you to listen to me and completely ignore me, no matter how mad or persuasive I sound. My possessions, life and inner chaos may be both unrecognisably similar to and very different from yours. It takes mental flexibility, being attuned to yourself and courage to know whatās needed.
It will deprive you of the drama and sympathy around āIām moving house, you know how it is!ā No, I donāt. I no longer know how stressful, painful, time-devouring, exhausting, every-room-big-bang-exploding it is. I used to. I turned it on its head. I want to show you my ways so that you can invent yours.
If this is a book that sounds right for you, please make yourself at home. I would love you to read it. If not, thank you for stopping over. Wind in your sails too for your next journey home.
Twenty-one (or thirty-three) times, nineteen years and counting
Iāve moved between twenty-one and thirty-three times in the past nineteen years. Twenty-one is for āproperā moves, in which Iāve packed my life in one place and took it over to another, not expecting to return and make home again in the former and expecting to stay for the foreseeable future in the latter. Thirty-three includes moves out of places where I intended to stay and did stay only temporarily. I was still looking for my āpermanentā home, waiting for it to be vacated, or hanging in space while my future took a clearer shape. On some of those occasions, I was also āhome homeā. āHome homeāāI use the phrase oftenāis the flat where I grew up, left at nineteen, where my mum still lives and where I still āreturnā.
I donāt include the times Iāve moved until I came to England, my most radical house move of all. Most of the decisions and tasks in those times werenāt mine. I was either moved by my parents (only twice actually, aged four and five) or had the broader family and family friends holding my hand (such as an uncle āappearingā in his car when I was moving out of the student residences). If I count that, I will have moved somewhere between twenty-eight and forty times. House moving statistics, like all statistics, is fickle. It shifts up and down depending on oneās assumptions and definitions.
Iāve moved in and out of four countries and nineteen towns, cities, villages and middle-of-nowheres. The biggest city Iāve lived in is London. The smallest place is either a tiny village at the foot of Sierra Nevada in Spain or Dawlish Warren on the coast of Devon, England.
The most impressive accommodation Iāve rented was an eighteen-room manor house, first built in the seventeenth century, still having its original front door and Dutch tiles decoration. I was taking wrong turns in it for weeks. As my only housemate was the ownerās daughter, who had the family home to return to, I was often the sole Queen of the Palace. In my maid-like version, Iāve had a room which could hardly fit an ironing board in the space left by the bed, wardrobe, desk, chair and clothes dryer.
Iāve had sea views from my windows in three houses and from the street right up in another one. In one of the former, on a clear day you could see (or imagine seeing) Africa in the distance. Iāve lived in places overlooking a river, a mountain and a pond. But Iāve also had a room facing the neighbourhood rubbish bins. There are times in life when the very best you can afford, in the timeframe youāve got to search for it, stinks.
Iāve lived by myself in eight of those places and with a boyfriend in one. The rest Iāve shared with thirty-seven housemates, with some significant margin for memory error (this is the count for a shared kitchen, itās twenty-nine for a shared bathroom). If you shudder at the thought of so many strangers, which all were originally, the norm in the times Iām not writing of was to have roommates. Including the ever-present boyfriends, the standard level of night-time occupancy was five persons in a three-by-three metres room. Living in shared spaces is a topic for another book. Itās not mine to write.
Iāve lost, moved and created many homes. Until move No 16, I found it hard. Iāve never wanted to move that much. My studies or work needed it. Iāve been quick to respond to a fluctuating budget, both in its ups and downs. Iāve moved for love. Iāve moved because of love lost. On several occasions, I sought more mental space somewhere far away and secluded. Occasionally, owners needed their properties earlier than I wished to leave. One way or another, I didnāt start my house moving ācareerā enthusiastically. I connect to things, places and people deeply, often slowly. It took me time to learn to leave with light suitcases. It took fifteen years longer to learn to leave with a light heart.
Most of my house moves are from the times when I was a student or a young academic recovering from a PhD. This meant on a minimal budget.
Iāve never had a car, so they had to be light (though Iāve rented vans too). They grew to be aware. When you carry all your possessions on your back, you are CERTAIN something is worth keeping.
Crucially, they were masterpieces in how not to need, not to ask for, and not to accept any help. My greatest fear in life used to be being a burden.
I hope that none of the above constraints defines your move without an alternative. They no longer define mine, but this book will be extra useful if you are counting every penny, your legs and public services are your only means of transport, and you are a hardy mule who ādoes itā herself or himself (hello, sister/ brother!).
Apart from having a career in moving, I have a career in analysing. Iām an academic researcher in the health sciences. I have studied psychology, philosophy and literature. I demand rigorous evidence, water-tight argumentation and psychological plausibility. I also talk about death and dying moreāand more bluntlyāthan most people, as much of my recent research has been in palliative and end of life care.
This is not an academic book though. There is no explicit theory in it. There is hardly any research evidence other than that of my own life. When I create an argument, it first needs to persuade the most ignorant, stupid, sceptical and disinterested fragments of me. As I have many ignorant, stupid, sceptical and disinterested fragments, my arguments are as simple as possible, but not simpler. I will still ask you to think hard. I will ask you to admit what you donāt want to admit. It may be more of a hard nut than popcorn of a book.
My experience doesnāt make me a house moving expert. It makes me a house moving expert, an absolute ninja in fact, in my own life. But since our lives, houses, possessions and attachments can be incredibly, even incomprehensibly, different, the direct advice I am willing to offer is minimal. Youāll have to derive most of it yourself. Only then youāll know it will withstand the storms of your life and inner chaos like nothing Iāll be able to teach you.
What this book is not about
This book is not about rules. I wonāt be telling you that if you have not worn something for the last year, or if it belonged to your ex-boyfriend/ ex-girlfriend, or if it has a hole between the legs, you should throw it out (or donate, sell, etc.). I will not prescribe an order in which to pack your possessions. I will not tell you the rough or precise number of things to keep.
I do not ridicule such rules. They simplify decision making. There is clarity and sureness about them. But they donāt work for me. I have to feel that something is good and right to do. This requires adding too much nuance, individual idiosyncrasy and complexity to any rule I could have come up with.
Instead, I tell you about the chaos of my possessions and soul and what I do about them. I share reference points, principles, arguments and examples of making decisions. These can be emotional, pragmatic, ethical, green, psychological, philosophical.... Sometimes they will match your needs, sometimes not. But even if they donāt, they can serve as food for thought. I would be just as happy if your decisions are the exact opposite to mine as long as something I wrote helped you make them.
This is not a book about the sweetness of home either. That sweetness is, of course, the goal and the background. It trickles through. It doesnāt flow. There is pain, struggle, fear, tears, loneliness, sadness, loss, blood in this book apart from the safety, order, clarity, laugher, certainty, adventure, freedom, lightness....I believe the former are unavoidable in finding our true home. By now, Iāve found mine and am there often (though being home is an ever in-and-out and evolving experience). But it is still a book that is more about the rocky road than the blissful destination.
This is also not a book about every sort of possession I could think of. For instance, I donāt have chapters about kidsā āthingsā, gardening or music, while these may be defining of your life. In some cases, this is because theyāve not been part of my life yet, like kids or gardening. In other cases, it is because Iāve never moved the bulk of my collection, for instance of musicāmy violins, LPs, cassettes, CDs and the rest have remained home home.
Yet many of the ideas I share transcend possessions. You may find the solutions for your music in the books chapter, for instance. To help you with this, the table of contents points, for each chapter after the introductory ones, to its core physical chaos topic (the material possessions a chapter is about) and its core psychological chaos topic (the psychological mess it addresses and which, for you, may be associated with the same or other types of possessions).
This is also not a book which develops an argument or a story in a way that expects you to read āeverythingā or in order. If a section begins to feel as having too much unnecessary detail and/or āoverthinking itā, you might be better off moving to a different chapter. The experience most likely means that a particular type of possession doesn't matter to you; that it is something you have a healthy relationship with and you know why you have what you have; or if it is in the context of a type of psychological mess, that youāve long outgrown or never been troubled by it. More rarely, resistance to detail may mean avoiding to face something painful or unpleasant, whether about the house moving work awaiting you or about yourself.
What this book is about without being about it
I sincerely hope to be able to help you with the practicalities of your move, but I donāt care much if I do. There are at least five other things I want to talk with you about while we ponder over moving houses.
The first is adventure in the everyday. Itās so typical for a house move to become about stress, dust, chaos, clutter, boxes, dry hands, exhaustion....It is also so typical to seek adventure in extreme or daring waysāgoing on a safari, skydiving, volunteering in an orphanage in Nepal....Yet if you put your mind to it, you will find extraordinary amounts of exploration, creativity, ridiculousness, chance encounters, insight, awe, magic and so much more while moving house. Conjuring adventure in ordinary or frustrating days is pure alchemy. A house move can be your cauldron.
The second thing this book is about without being about it is the courage to show yourself. So many of our possessions, including the homes we choose to live in, hide us. They are faceless. They make us invisible. Or they are right in everybodyās face while showing none of our truth. It takes courage to show that truth, both in its shadows and its light, including through what we own.
The third thing I often write about in the background is care with integrity. So many of us care deeply for the environment and the less fortunate and act on that care. We do it sincerely. We do it systematically. But we do it sincerely and systematically until it becomes inconvenient; until it crosses a certain threshold of āour partā or āreasonableā; until we must refuse to eat at the place where food is served in plastic containers; until we have to cycle uphill with glass bottles and empty tins clinking in our backpack; until we have to talk to the homeless with the dead left eye. House moves are extreme tests for how far we are walking the talk we are talking.
In the same stroke, they stretch our capacity for self-care. They show us if we care as wise light souls or self-torturing self-righteous martyrs. They distil our ability to balance care and self-care.
The fourth thing this book is about without being about it is freedom. It is not about the freedom of moving from one place to another, although this can be a grand way to feel free. It is about the freedom of thousands of social pressures, myths, cliches and straightforward lies around āhomeā. When youāve fought for your way of thinking about something as fundamental as āhomeā, it will be easier to do it about other big things where we are ruled, against our best interests and the longings of our soul, by social convention and ānormal lifeā.
But what I write the most about without writing directly about it is that which may help you feel less lonely, less anxious and less homeless in the gaping hole that sometimes opens when moving houses. I want you to feel less scared and inadequate because of the shit inside of you (and thatās irrespective of whether you are moving it from house to house or sitting on it in the same house for years). I want you to know that no matter how extreme, stinking and deep running that shit is, it is never greater than the opportunities to contain it. Itās the same as the mess in a house you are moving fromāit may feel overwhelming and infinite, but there are always ways to sort and contain it.
There is always a house you can move intoāa physical house of enough space or an emotional house of safety, love and wisdomā that can embrace, contain and transform all the mess you bring in.
If you havenāt yet found it, letās build it.
House Moving Therapy by Mila Petrova is, if nothing else, a creative homage to one determined author's relentless determinism and resilience toward frequent property moves. Using her personal experiences, Petrova brings to market a guide which aims to support readers going through relocations, be it through the author's empathetic words or in the medium of tough love, providing instruction on how to get through the ordeal as swiftly as possible. Throughout, Petrova's advice is considerate, factoring in the impact property moves can have on one's mental health and wallet.
The structure of this book is straightforward enough, five chronological sections with multiple chapters listed underneath, coupled summary boxes as conclusions to most of the key chapters. At nearing four hundred pages long, there is certainly a lot to digest here in terms of content. This is probably the book's major stumbling block, one which limits its potential audience. While in places Petrova bestows some valuable tokens of advice (e.g., how to decide what items to keep versus what to throw away, how to ship items to a new address without breaking the bank), these insights are bogged down in far too much surrounding copy that could have been cut out altogether. Long paragraphs have a tendency to veer somewhat off topic, switching from numbered bullets to detailed descriptions of Petrova's past life, in a way that feel more akin to memoir than self-help. At points it feels like the author has lost focus on the book's intended purpose.
Personally, I think this book would have benefited from being split in two; one book covering the practical 'how to' of moving house and a second publication that was more reflective in outlook, focusing on the author's personal experiences. This follow-on title would been beneficial memoir in its own right. Petrova's writing is of a respectable calibre to produce both stand-alone books, instead of one chunky title.
House Moving Therapy tries to boil the ocean by tackling distinct two genres in one book and in this case, the writing just isn't quite up to par to pull it off.
AEB Reviews