Boxed up (and slightly losing it)

I am moving house.

Which, as it turns out, is less about relocating your belongings and more about examining your entire life as you sift through its remnants.

There are boxes everywhere, which makes it feel decidedly less like a home and more like a transfer station. As with every move I have boxes labelled “kitchen”, “bathroom” and “bedroom” along with the obligatory boxes labelled “misc” which is code for “this is all the shite that doesn’t have a clear home.”

And then there are the sentimental things. The photos. The kids’ drawings. The books I’ve carried through three house moves but haven’t read in 20 years. The chipped teapot I refuse to throw out because it feels like betrayal.

I’ve been in this house for seven years and I had forgotten this truth: when you move, you curate yourself. What comes with you is the story you choose to keep telling.

It’s exhausting. And weirdly emotional. But also quietly – beautifully – reassuring.

Because in the middle of the chaos, I’ve been reminded of who I am and how I got to this place in life. And because people keep showing up, offering to help with the packing, with the moving, with the hugs, or the wine, or both.

And you realise that while you’re busy deciding which version of yourself makes it into the next chapter, there are people around you who don’t need you to curate anything at all.

They’ll take you as-is. Half-packed. Slightly overwhelmed. Fragile and wrapped in bubble wrap if necessary.

And maybe that’s the bit we don’t talk about enough, not just in moving, but in life, and in the work we do.

Because this is what stories really are. Not the polished version. Not the highlight reel. But the accumulation of small, ordinary things we choose to keep. The threads we decide still matter. The people who keep showing up.

It’s also what makes regional communities what they are. You don’t just live in them – you’re held by them. In practical ways (trailers, spare hands, someone who knows someone with a ute), and in quieter ways too. The kind that remind you who you are when you’re too tired to remember yourself.

So yes, I’m tired. And a bit undone by it all. And surrounded by boxes that feel like tiny existential crises.

But I’m also held.

And that is something I wouldn’t dream of leaving behind.

Peita