Reflections on moving
My apologies for the radio silence last week. We moved! I had intended to write something for you all, and even had a tentative topic chosen (which I will likely come back to you at some point in the future). But I couldn’t do it.
Now some of you might be saying, well that’s okay moving is a big deal, and it is. You uproot your entire routine, crawl through the bowels of your home to make sure you don’t forget anything (I’m looking at you pot lid on top of the kitchen cabinets), pack it all up carefully, make arrangements to get your things physically taken to your new home, unpack it all again, and settle into a new routine. I’m tired just thinking about it.
But this is now move 11 for me (two of which were international). This isn’t my first rodeo. Moving is never convenient and always requires juggling the actual move and your day-job or school or family. Like many academics I’m used to doing it all. Add this new committee? Sure. Another student needs supervision? Why not? The dog needs to get to the vet for an allergy shot? I’ll do that at lunch. It’s what we’re trained for, right?
So, here’s the thing that surprised me this time around, I couldn’t concentrate on my creative work (research and this blog). My mind was completely consumed with setting up the house, finishing up all paperwork related to moving, and basically getting things in order. I couldn’t just power through creative work things like I would have done in the past. Frankly it felt strange. Over the last week I’ve been thinking about what happened?
These are my realizations:
I need order – For me creative work requires mental bandwidth. I need to know and feel that the basics of my life (where I’m living and where I can find my favorite coffee mug) are taken care of. We all go through seasons of real busyness and that’s okay. But the creativity demanded by our research requires mental space. So, if you are in the busy right now and can’t find a way to get that paper your writing finished, maybe cut yourself some slack?
Change is good – (Yes, I know this is contradictory, but hear me out). If you had asked me at the beginning of this year about moving, I would have said no. This move was not on my bingo card. But I am so glad that it happened. I am a HUGE fan of order, but change is also good (two things can be true at the same time). I’ve taken stock of my stuff, I’ve put down some more permanent roots in my community, and I’m building new neural pathways in my brain that will serve me later in life (I only made the wrong turn home once last week).
Bonus realization – When I was powering through all my work in the past, I now realize it wasn’t my best work. Did it get done? Sure. Was it technically correct? Yes. Would I stand behind it today? No. This was a hard realization. In a job that is predicated on finding truth, I am embarrassed to admit that sometimes the world wasn’t getting my best work.
What have you learned from moving? Or making a change in your life?
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