Your Desire to Move House May Symbolize a Need for Control (or Personal Growth).
Why you may want to move house during times of chaos or significant life change + how to know when to stay or go.
Hello friends! It’s a blustery Friday in late March, with an unexpected Wisconsin snowstorm coming down outside. I’m sitting in my favorite local coffee shop mapping out ideas for a new book concept that’s vying for my attention and sorting through some thoughts for this essay I’m compelled to share today.
This essay was inspired by a comment I recently had from
of Musings by Mika on my audio post about Reflecting on the Mid-life Transition of Motherhood. My response to her was getting pretty lengthy, which tells me I have quite a bit to say about moving house as a way of providing a sense of control during times of chaos or significant life change.So, I thought I’d share my reflections via email and as an essay on Substack to expand the conversation…
This is Mika’s comment that inspired this post:
The realization that Mika had in this comment is a universal feeling that I’m sure many of us can relate to during times when the world around us feels out of control and everything we know is changing.
When we have no power over what is happening, we crave an environment that we can control.
I think we also believe that a new place can provide an opportunity to become more of the person we aspire to be - along with a chance to try on a new identity.
This is something I’ve experienced myself, especially now that my children are grown and I’ll have an empty nest in a year or so.
This shift in my mothering identity has left me craving a new place to call my own.
As a result, I’ve often found myself daydreaming of the ideal home where the next chapter could write itself (complete with a backyard studio overlooking the woods where I’d write all my bestsellers and return to exploring different interests of creativity. And it would also have a bigger kitchen and dining area with room for future generations of family!).
And hopefully, it would be a new home that could maybe have a few less memories…
Trigger warning: the following part of this essay includes sensitive information that mentions abuse, mental illness, and suicide. If you prefer not to read this section, skip down to the next that begins: “To say I have an obsession with home is an understatement.”
I started exploring what home means (and the possibilities of what it could be) by pursuing a Bachelor’s degree in Interior Architecture and Design in my twenties…
until my mother died.
I was in the middle of my Junior year, top of my class, and entertaining future plans of becoming a professional designer when my world changed.
Until that moment, I was certain I would have a successful career that could provide for myself and my six-year old son. I was fierce, and determined to stand on my own two feet - not needing the help of any man. I wanted to build a life that could give us everything we needed to thrive and dreamed of the day I could design a home, just for us.
This fierce determination came after I had ended a relationship with an abusive and controlling boyfriend (just a few years after having also ended an emotionally abusive and controlling relationship with my first husband). Yes, there were two terrible relationships in my past.
Then, one evening while studying for exams in the sunroom at my father’s house while my son played with his legos on the floor - I got the call that my mother had shot herself.
Everything changed quickly after that.
The next few days flew by in a blur and left me, her only next of kin, to make the end of life decision to take her off of life support.
Her brain was dying, her body shutting down - there was no hope that she’d live.
After my mothers death, I had to sell my grandmothers decrepit farmhouse that she had been living in, or the government would sell it for the price of the back taxes owed.
(In retrospect, I believe financial issues and her constant struggle with mental illness, combined with living in an isolated, moldy family estate - heavy with remnants of her own complicated childhood, all played into the decision to take her own life.)
Selling was not an easy choice to make, however, because my grandmother had left me the house before she died of cancer - with the condition that my mother would have life use of it. My grandmother believed that I would be the one to keep her beloved property in the family. She knew my mother wouldn’t be able to, that she’d sell the moment she needed money.
Unfortunately, I didn’t know that my mother wasn’t paying the property taxes while she lived there. And after her death, I had no money to pay them either - so my only option was to sell.
In all honesty, I would never have been able to live there anyway.
Not after what happened.
I had to believe my grandmother would have understood my choice. But to this day - a part of me still feels like I betrayed her faith in me.
Once the house sold, I had 30 days to reinvest what little profit I’d made, or I’d lose most of it to inheritance tax.
Suddenly, I was in a position to buy my own home…
The market was a bit pricey at the time, but I was fortunate to find a quaint little white house that didn’t need any significant work. It was also about three miles from where I was currently living (in my childhood home) with my father and step-mom, in my local hometown. This meant that the bus could take my son to my new house or his grandpa’s house after school. (A small, but fortunate detail that allowed me to finish attending college.)
I remember driving by that white house almost daily while I was waiting for the sale to go through!
And I had it in my head that this house was the fresh start my son and I needed.
I couldn’t stop dreaming of what our lives would be like there because I was certain this house was where we could be safe, where I could finally become the mother to him I aspired to be, and where he could grow into the man he had the potential to be.
In this house, I wouldn’t have to live in a damp, garage converted into a bedroom where everyone who entered the could see my entire studio ‘apartment’.
In this house, my son could have his own room, instead of sleeping on a small bed across from me.
In this house, I wouldn’t have to answer to any man who wanted to control me.
In this house, I would finally have the upper hand, and life could be everything I ever wanted it to be!
What I couldn’t have foreseen was that having a house to pay for while grieving and finishing college as a single mom would change my dreams.
After moving into our new home, my focus shifted significantly.
I still got my degree. My senior thesis was also the beginning of my research into design psychology…but I decided I wanted nothing to do with working in the city.
Instead, I met a gentle man who knew how to respect women and who wanted to help take care of me, my son, and my grief. So I remarried and became pregnant with my daughter at the tale end of my senior year of college.
By then, I knew that all I really wanted was a family.
I felt called to stay in my hometown, raise my babies, and figure out what home really means.
Career accolades held nothing of interest for me. What I wanted to know was how to create a home where we could actually be happy.
To say I have an obsession with the topic of home is probably an understatement, as I’ve actually been dreaming of knocking down walls since I was a kid.
I’d often lay in bed at night imagining how different my life could be if only I could build a window seat in the eastern wall of my bedroom, just so I could see the trees.
It’s no surprise my father said no to that whim, his reason being that the concrete blocks were too difficult to cut through!
Instead, I began collecting solid wood furniture by the time I was 9 years old in preparation for the day I could have a place of my own.
Of course, this led me to dreaming of entirely different houses - of places where I could be the real me: drawing and writing in light filled rooms with vast views of the ocean or corn fields or mountains - living in a world of my own making.
A home and a world where I’d be safe from my mothers unpredictable mood swings.
Once I had a home of my own, I proceeded to shape it to my family’s needs - especially during pivotal moments of my children’s lives.
We are probably one of the few homes in the neighborhood with a built in playhouse and basement slide!
We also finished the entire basement - complete with an art studio for me, a fourth bedroom, a third bathroom, and a second family entertainment space.
This was where my brother-in-law lived for awhile, and eventually my teenaged son moved down there when he left.
For a time, we also had beautiful raised garden beds and a fence that contained our family pets. (And toddler daughter who loved to run!! Before I knew it, she’d be 3-4 houses down the minute I turned my back!)
While my children were young, I wanted to go beyond the basics of interior design and became certified in Design Psychology Coaching and freelanced as a Healthy Home Consultant after a mentorship with the Building for Health/Green Design Center in Waukesha, WI.
And, for nearly 10 years since, I’ve been working towards putting all of this knowledge, experience, and insight into a book I’ve been calling The Alchemy of Home…
This book was meant to share reflections and experiences I’ve had of home, alongside the research I’ve done on how home can impact our wellbeing, our identity, and influence our ability to actualize our inherent potential.
I’ve even mapped out strategies for changing your spaces during life transitions - as a way of supporting your own personal growth, as well as your family’s.
However, I couldn’t keep writing it when my daughter turned 17.
That was when I realized that my anticipated feelings about having an empty nest felt more conflicting than my childhood experiences of living in an unstable home.
Suddenly, I wanted to run away - to sell my house and find some ‘perfect’ country estate surrounded by trees; a place where I envisioned my ideal life could finally come to be.
After time spent reflecting, I came to understand that I wanted to leave the home where I raised my kids because it was triggering grief, sadness, resentment - even anger.
These emotions, at first, were really difficult to identify - let alone determine exactly why!
Plus, I was particularly mad that I wanted to write this book about how to create a home environment that could truly nurture and support your wellbeing - but in reality, I couldn’t put what I was writing into practice anymore!
Instead, I was living in the midst of a 7 year unfinished/failed renovation with one thing falling apart or breaking after another (including my marriage at one point).
Eventually, I just stopped. I stopped everything! I stopped writing that book. Stopped pursuing this insatiable need to remodel my house. Stopped searching realtor.com for dream properties.
Since then, things have begun to shift dramatically.
And I realized, just last week as I walked through the hall - stepping over the crack in our ‘new’ floors where they have decided they want to move, expand, and separate - that I have spent the last 20 years of my life looking for a way to control my experience of home.
Honestly, I’ve even had this epiphany before, but it’s so easy to forget.
I already know it’s a futile effort of mental, emotional, and physical energy to try to control the world around you. In reality, you can only truly control your REACTIONS to what happens in life.
This time the realization was a bit different, however. In that moment it hit me…
Everything breaking around me, the unfinished renovation projects - they all became subtle (and sometimes obtrusive) signs that my home was actually rebelling against my need to control it!
HOUSES HAVE ENERGY
As a writer, I tend to anthropomorphize many things around me - but you have to admit - houses do have energy!
They can feel like living, breathing entities. You can walk into almost any building and feel the residual energy from the lives that have lived or passed through before.
Maybe that sounds crazy - but it feels like there’s a kernel of truth woven into that perspective of reality; that perhaps all that has gone wrong in this house has simply been a result of conflicting energies. Subliminal energies that caused friction.
And my previous renovation intentions feel as if they haven’t been in alignment with my inherent needs, nor the needs of my family.
Since I’ve stopped striving for external, environmental control - everything is shifting.
There is a subtle return of calm - an undertone of peace. My daughter and husband are moving more freely. We’re all talking more than we ever have. We’re all moving towards our next, brightest destinations - separately, but in harmony.
There’s less tension in the atmosphere.
Even if there are things that still need fixing…
And I’ve stopped looking for that perfect home that I think could help me make everything right in my life, as I know I’d just be taking all that dusty, negative energy with me.
I realized that who I wanted to be in that dream house, is someone I can be right here, right now, in the home I already have.
I may still move one day, when the timing is right.
I may also finish The Alchemy of Home book one day, too! But first, I need to prioritize the emotions that need tending.
I need to release my desire for control and let things evolve more naturally.
Don’t get me wrong, I do still believe there is powerful advantages to having a fresh start in a new environment, because it’s a great way to shake up complacency, to stretch beyond familiar habits, and grow into the next version of your enhanced being.
For now, though (at least for me), it’s not a NO - it’s just a not yet.
I have more peace to make with myself and this place I currently call home.
QUESTIONS TO ASK YOURSELF IF YOU WANT TO MOVE HOUSE:
If you find yourself craving a new place to call home, take a minute to read these prompts and reflect on the answers in your journal. In my experience, this will help you determine if you should stay where you’re at or if it’s really time to go.**
What is my underlying motivation for wanting to move house?
What do I think moving will fix or make better in my life?
Is there a way to fix or make those things better in the home I’m living in now?
Am I running away from something that I think will be better in a new place?
What will the new house provide that I can’t find here?
What will I have to change or sacrifice in order to move to the new house?
Are those things I’m willing to let go of?
What, if anything, can I change or sacrifice to make my current home into a place that better supports my needs?
There may be many more questions that arise during this journaling exercise. Just sit with those questions for as long as you need.
**And if you ever find yourself in an unstable or unsafe situation at home, please reach out for help! In situations like this, your number one priority is to find a safe space - no further questioning or introspection needed.
If you’ve made it this far, thank you for reading! I’d also love to hear if you had any reflections or insights of your own pertaining to your relationship with home.
Are there times in your life when you feel like you were trying to control your experience of home?
Are there times when you chose to move and it was the best (or worst) decision you ever made?
I’m always curious to hear other stories of home!
Oh Darcey! I love this piece so much. Thank you for sharing your words and inviting us into your life.
I resonate so much with the fixation around home - for me, I moved around a lot as a kid and lived with my grandmother for most of my childhood and adolescence. I never knew how to answer “where are you from?” It felt like I belonged no where.
I carried this pattern into adulthood. I was moved every couple of years. I never had my own “place” so I would never decorate knowing I would move again soon. I also hoped the next place would bring me “perfection.” Lol it didn’t.
I’m still unpacking and working through how my childhood influenced my thinking and behavior. But for now I’ve realized my home is my family. They’re not going anywhere. I finally feel safe and secure enough that I can exhale and start setting roots. It was never the house or place. It was me.
Oh my goodness, the brilliance of this post! Seriously… just wow. I see myself in so much of what you wrote here and the need to control the environment and wanting to leave when you cannot. This was a lesson I had to learn in a difficult way. I wish I had had your wonderful and wise words back in my 20’s and 30’s 🥰