Moving is a Schlep

Moving is a Schlep

The word “schlep” is a Yiddish word that means “hauling something very heavy from here to there.” In a few months we will be moving from a townhouse to an apartment in Sioux Falls.  That doesn't sound very stressful and yet it is.  And I ask myself, why is that?  First and foremost, you have to pack and leave your home.  You have to say goodbye again.  Leaving home is not easy.  Home is not only where the heart is; home is where everything is settled and you’re safe.  You are in control. At home, you can close the door on whatever is going on outside.  You can walk around in your underwear. Unless your home is a crazy place, you yearn to be home.

Moving, even across town, is a schlep.  More so for my wife, whom I thank here, since she packs and organizes so much of our stuff.  Moving takes away from our sanity.  It messes with our roots and our stability.  It makes us crabby with each other. It’s not fun even if you like where you are moving. 

So, what to do?  Moving happens.  It’s part of life.  We move for a new job, for a new school, for a new place that will keep us safe.  It’s part of the restlessness of life in America.  We are always looking for the right place to live.

And moving has a certain rhythm.  We have to work through the stress, frustration, exasperation, of finding and packing boxes upon boxes, of determining what to keep and what to dispose, of hiring the right movers, deciding whether to downsize to one car, changing all the mail addresses, through all this we try to work together. 

It’s what we do.  And it takes courage and pluck to move.  It’s easier to just stay in one place even if it is terribly painful.  I understand that.

In the Bible, the first mover was Abraham. God told him to move, to leave his family, his land and his community.  He traveled far to a strange and uncomfortable place.  He received a promise that he and his people would be taken to a land that would be their home. And so, the quest began. In most of the Bible the people of Israel are either traveling to get to the land or in diaspora away from the land.  So it was for them and so it is for us. We are, after all, related to Abraham.  We leave where we are in search of that place where we will feel at home.

But, moving is not all bad.  It’s an adventure.  Now, adventures are not all they are cracked up to be.  I get it.  But we are moving to a place that will become our safe home, a place where we can hug, be safe under our covers while the wind howls and the snow falls, enjoy and marvel at the wonderful view, wait for the spring and birds to return, stare at the beauty of the trees, be at peace as much as we can be.

I know, in the end, we will walk through it all together, love each other and survive to tell the tale. Yet, no matter how I much I rationalize it, leaving home is a schlep.

My oldest son, when he was fifteen, asked me once, “Dad, why does there have to be goodbye?”  That’s a great question!  I answered, “I don’t know Nate, but such is life and you and I can’t change it.”  And we will walk through it together, encourage and be kind with each other and thereby keep each other sane.  Blame it all on God, Abraham or American restlessness.  But here we go again.  And moving is a schlep.