Moving, change, and the new year
Most people have moved at one point or another in their lives. Some haven’t. And some have made a career out of it.
When I was young, my dad was a corporate lawyer, so every couple of years we packed up and moved like classic Army brats, only on a cushier level. By the time I graduated from college, my family had moved six times.
I attended two different elementary schools, two junior highs, one high school, and one college. After I graduated, they moved again but I stayed put. And then I ended up moving four more times before I finally settled in Altamont at age 29 and swore, never again.
Fast forward about 30 years and guess what, we just moved again. And this one, hopefully, will be it. Thankfully this one was a move of about one-half mile within the village. But it was still weird, unsettling, and a lot of work.
When I was young and we moved, the company paid for it, so a giant Allied Moving semi would pull up outside the house. Next, a locust plague of movers and packers would descend armed with boxes, tape, packing materials, and crazy energy. They would blow through the house packing everything in sight.
If the dog sat still too long, she got boxed up. The truck was then loaded, and we all climbed into the Olds Vista Cruiser (a real-world Family Truckster) and zoomed off to meet the truck at the new house.
And of course, the same crew unloaded and unpacked with the same verve. Sometimes you’d find the same detritus in the ash trays as they packed them and unpacked them, but never emptied them.
This time, we moved one carload at a time over a 12-week period, ending with a crew of moving pros finishing the job and handling the really heavy stuff and so, at age 58, I think I’m finally staying put. But then again, who knows; aliens could land tomorrow.
The thing about moving is that each time you do it, you get a fresh start. New schools, new towns, new doctors and dentists, new jobs, new friends, and new experiences.
After a bit, you realize that change is hard but has a great deal of possibility woven into it. When you start out, your world is small, bordered by what you see every day and the people in your life.
As you age and gain experience, you begin to see that the world is both much smaller in some ways and vastly bigger in others. There are different ways to do things depending on where you live. Celebrating Christmas is a different experience if you’re in LA versus Altamont. Getting to school is very different in Monroeville, Pennsylvania than it is in Vestal, New York.
And, once you’re on your own, working and living is not the same in Pawling, New York as it is in Amsterdam, New York. Small town versus small city versus big city yields a very different set of experiences.
It changes your point of view and pretty much forces you to open your mind to new things. When I was in my early 20s, going into Manhattan on business or dining out there was normal. In my 30s, going out to eat in Schenectady was normal as was walking my son to school every day. In my 40s, I worked for myself mostly and drove thousands of miles all over the region fixing computers for people.
Nowadays, I work a few days a week for a web company, building and maintaining websites all over the internet. I can work literally from anywhere, but I go into the office because it’s nice to hang out with other humans.
The rest of the time we see the grandbabies, walk, work on the new house, and still go out to eat, mostly in Schenectady. Come spring, I’ll be back out on my bikes and working on bikes, mowing the lawn, and working on the new house.
And the thing is, having lived in lots of places, worked many jobs, and done some traveling, I’m now quite content with my not terribly exciting daily life.
I’m content because having seen the alternatives; I realize that a quiet life in Altamont is a very nice thing. Had I spent my whole life here, I might feel differently, perhaps less than fulfilled.
And this is why moving is probably not a bad thing, in hindsight. Had you asked me how I felt about it when I was young, I would have complained bitterly about new schools, new houses, having to make new friends and how hard it all was.
And for that person then, it was all true. Now, decades later, I see the positives, though it did take a while to get here.
I know the old saw about change being the only constant in life, but there is such a thing as both too much change and truly negative change. People need to feel safe in order to be comfortable and to grow. But if you throw too much change at a person, they stress out and devolve.
Think about what we’ve all had to deal with in the past four years between political unrest, an attempted coup, pandemics, economic uncertainty, working from home, home schooling, vaccines, high gas prices suddenly plummeting and egg prices skyrocketing. I’m darn glad I’m not a professional baker, that’s all I can say.
When you get down to it, moving a lot made dealing with all the current craziness a little easier. You look at each thing a little less emotionally and realize that it will all pass eventually.
In my lifetime thus far, this country has been through at least four wars, multiple economic cycles from boom to bust, Reagan, Bush, Nixon, Clinton, Bush again, Carter, Obama and of course our previous clown in chief.
Now we have a guy quietly going about repairing damage, managing crises, and making the country better than he found it. He won’t be the greatest president we’ve ever had, but he’ll be far from the worst, who we just had. If you’ve been around the block a couple times, you know what I mean.
So, welcome to the new year. I hope it’s a good one for all of us. Take a deep breath, fasten your seatbelts, put your tray tables in the upright position, and let’s try to avoid a zombie apocalypse. I really don’t want to move again, especially across a dystopian hellscape. It’s really hard to find a good mechanic in those.
Editor’s note: Michael Seinberg moved to Altamont on PTA Garage Sale Day in 1993. He says that, if you know him and his wife, you know it was appropriate.