The Spruce / Ashley Chalmers
Before relocating from the U.S. to the U.K., I thought I understood moving.
But turns out, I had only scratched the surface.
Over the next seven years, we moved three more times.
The Spruce / Ashley Chalmers
Then, we agreed on an international moveand suddenly, everything I thought I knew felt inadequate.
We had built a life in New York Cityit was full and hectic and packed withstuff.
Yearsbefore Marie Kondo was cool, we asked ourselves what do wereallyneed?
The Spruce / Ashley Chalmers
What can we ditch in the name of saving space?
What should we plan to upgrade or replace upon arrival?
What’s uncomfortable now isn’t a sign you made the wrong choice.
The Spruce / Ashley Chalmers
It just means you might need a little bit more time before it feels like home.
In theory, that was true, until our original arrival date passed.
Then, the new date passed, too.
The Spruce / Ashley Chalmers
This happened a few more times.
It was tedious and frustrating, but it’s another lesson I’ve held close.
But an international move meant whatever we shipped over was ours to keep and figure out.
After we exhausted all the ‘pivot!
‘Friendsjokes we had in us, we agreed we should have more carefully mapped out our plan.
Big Moves Take Time
Before moving to London, we spent a year in France.
It was an eye-opening time, but it was all temporary.
That made it easy to dismiss any culture shock, but in my mind, London would be different.
London was going to be our real life, for as long as we wanted.
As soon as we arrived, I was desperate to speed through the uncomfortable settling in period.
I was tired of feeling exhausted while simply looking for ingredients at the grocery store.
Then, one day, it happened.
About two years into living here, I realized the fog had cleared without my notice.
