The Part of Moving We Overlook

Every year for my mom’s birthday, all she asks for is a card. This year, I will admit, I am late. Not because I forgot, but because I was trying to think about what this past year has really made me realize.

The past few weeks, I have been writing a lot for Overthinking Real Estate, and it came to me that the perfect thing to write about was something I never paid much attention to when I was growing up: how a house becomes a home.

My family moved. A lot. I am the third kid and was born in 1999, and between 1999 and 2022, we moved eleven times. And that does not even include the moves before I was born… and for the longest time, I never really saw what went into those moves.

A very delayed realization

As a kid, we would show up at our new houses, and our clothes were put away. Our bedrooms were painted our favorite colors. Our favorite snacks were in the pantry. Everything was just… done.

In all honesty, as I got older, my idea of moving was still pretty basic. In my head, Dad was handling the buying side of the house, we were moving, and that’s that. I gave very little credit to everything that comes in addition to the money part of actually buying a house.

So after a year in real estate, and after spending so much time overthinking and writing about homes through an economic and sociological lens, I decided there was no way a typical birthday card would do.

My mom deserves the world. Instead, she is getting an essay on my Substack dedicated entirely to her (and for my 10 subscribers to also read!).

Continued oblivion

Moving never felt like some giant logistical operation to me. It was just: this is our new house, this is my new room, my stuff is here, and everything works. My mom made all that possible. And she never complained.

Now I think about what it actually takes to move a family of six and two dogs to different states, not once, but multiple times. To pack up everyone’s lives, keep track of what every person needs, and make a completely unfamiliar place feel put together almost immediately.

And to do all of that because you love these people so much that you want them to feel settled, even if getting them there means taking on most of the chaos yourself.

When I was younger, I did not see any of that. I just knew that wherever we moved, it became ours. She was the one making sure the schools were the right fit and everyone had what they needed.

And then there was everything that came before the move: deciding what to bring and what to leave behind, remembering the address changes and school forms, and keeping track of all the little things I never had to think about.

I obviously knew all of this didn’t happen on its own. I knew someone was doing it, I was just never thinking about who. I was so focused on how I was going to adjust that I forgot to think about everything my mom was doing to make that adjustment easier for all of us.

For the health of it

In taking care of everyone else, my mom often forgot to put herself first. Our doctors’ appointments were more important than hers. Our problems felt more urgent. There was always something one of us needed, and she somehow found a way to make it happen.

She used to say she wished she were an octopus so she could have eight hands to help us more. But I do not think she realized how much she was already doing with two.

And I think she is finally starting to understand why putting yourself first sometimes is not selfish. Sometimes, you have to do it for the health of it.

Because you can have the most organized house on the street, everyone taken care of, and every little thing in its place, but if your health is not where it needs to be, suddenly none of that feels nearly as important.

As a kid, I thought houses just became homes. Now I realize moms make them that way.

A few years ago, it hit me that because we moved so much, I do not really have a “home base” in the traditional sense. There is no one childhood house I can point to and say, that is home… but I understand it differently now, because my home base was never one of the houses. It is wherever she is. And how beautiful is it to realize that, for me, home has never really been a place. It has always been a person.

So, a couple of days late, but also a couple of important realizations later, I want to wish my mom the happiest of birthdays. May this year be filled with health, happiness, strength, and some of the answers we have been looking for.

I love you… more!!!!!