Moving

I have to admit, I get the itch to move every couple of years. It's probably hard-wired from moving around a bit as a child. Absolutely mind-rippingly painful the first time but thereafter quite bearable.

Now I seem to need it. I get to the point where no amount of moving the furniture around the house will quite do. And here's an admission about the depth of this weird need for change: I sometimes sleep with my head at the foot of the bed just to get that where-the-hell-am-I feeling when I wake up.

It was fine to flit about like this when I was on my lonesome but quite another thing to drag a little family around with me. At this point in particular it would mean lugging around the mountain of toys that have accumlutated around us.

I also don't want to do it on a whim. As mentioned before, moving is a huge thing for J - an overwhelming mountain of tasks all rolled up in one one rumbling avalanche of change. So there has to be a bloody compelling reason to move.

I think there are very good reasons to do with my own happiness. I don't drive and we're stuck out in the suburbs at the moment - something we did when T was born because we couldn't afford to stay where we were on one salary. But now it means we use the car too much and we don't walk as much because there's nothing we want to get to that's less than an hour away (a big ask from three-year-old legs).

Mostly for me it means a loss of independence. I hate relying on J to get out (and he hates the pressure of it as well).

So I've been plotting and scheming and trying to figure out how we can do it financially. The only answer I can come up with is downsizing. We could only afford to go back to where we want to be and still save a bit of cash for that possibly-never-to-be-fulfilled-pipedream of buying a place to live if we live in a one-bedroom flat somewhere.

I know how weird that sounds - one bedroom for three people. But right now we all share a room and I can't see that changing for a couple of years (quite long enough to make moving worth it I think and I quite long enough to save some cash). And I value my freedom above my stuff.

I raised the subject, knowing it would be met with resistance and shut-down. Interesting moment though when I said the words "I feel trapped here." I got a rolling of the eyes and, "How do you think I feel all the time?"

There are ways I could have been deeply hurt by this statement but I chose to take it as a geographical trapped rather than a relationship trapped. At any rate it gave me the opportunity to say, "Well I don't want to stay trapped and I'm going to do everything I can to get out of here. Nothing's going to change if we keep doing everything the same."

We were on the swings at the time at the local park, so kind of trapped in the conversation (not all bad is it?). He said talking about money reminded him of his past relationship (a marriage where he lost his business and savings). I said that my past experiences hadn't all been good either, but he's not that person and this is not that marriage.

That was really pushing things as far as addressing things goes. I know that there's no point in trying to talk about things when J is depressed. It can only end badly. But at the moment I'm finding it hard to tell the difference between when he's depressed and when he's well. It's like four seasons in one day. So I had to take a chance.

I can't say if it's paid off or not. We still haven't really taken any concrete steps towards making anything happen. I'm going to send an email and make an appointment with him to talk about our budget. I was thinking maybe lunch on a day when we're both working. I wonder if that's a good idea?

Sorry for the slightly rambling post but I'm a bit obsessed with this idea at the moment and feeling more than little optimistic.

I'd love to hear any comments about your own experiences with involving your partner in big decisions - how to engage without overwhelming, how to move forward without it falling, crashing into a big stinking heap.

Flo