We’re Moving Home: How To Make A Move Without The Stress, Part 2
The car died tonight and I couldn’t be happier! "That’s odd", I hear you say, what sort of lunatic makes a statement like that? Well in a follow-up to my moving without stress post of last night, let me explain.
For those new to the experiment, I’m trying to depart a little from a mindset of needing to plan and control all aspects of life. After the motivations I describe in my original post, I’ve been having some success in doing this and have opted to make our current residential move an exercise in “letting life happen” rather than stressing and planning the event excessively.
After booking in the power connection for the new home yesterday, today’s job was to meet with the real estate agent and collect the keys; another simple enough task. I’d left for work especially early to allow me to finish at a time suitable for the appointment. My wife was kind enough to collect me from work and we began the planned trip for the 4.40pm meeting.
No soon had we hit the road… brake lights. The traffic was gridlocked. We crawled painfully slowly, sometimes not at all.
Perhaps it’s my German heritage that makes being late a very uncomfortable concept. It has all the physiologically effects on me as public speaking has on others or the fear of commitment has on others still. As my eyes darted between narrow gaps in the cars around me and as I searched for small opportunities to drive faster in other lanes, my thoughts focused on my objective. “Let life happen”.
The worst case scenario would require a courtesy phone call to say the meeting would have to be postponed and some logistical reshuffling would be required. "Just sit back, relax and enjoy the drive" I told myself.
The traffic eased substantially and we made up time. That relaxing bit however was shaken about 10 minutes from our destination. Literally.
The car, not three years old and well maintained started missing, knocking and running roughly. Pulling out of a turn, the dashboard lit up like the aurora borealis and the car went into limp-home-mode. The restricted power was just enough to pull into a carpark and stop.
I turns out the carpark was just outside a lovely looking country hotel; oozing character with a nice balcony, chimney and garden. What’s more, as chance would have it, the real estate agent was literally the next side street up. My wife and I locked the car and walked through the lovely garden to the agent, arriving not 2 minutes late. A success!
The staff were lovely and the meeting was enjoyable. By the time we’d finished it had fallen dark. What about that car however? My mind had been doing it’s normal processing during the meeting; covering plans for road side assistance and the replacement of the vehicle’s lost utility. It occurred to me to just try the car again and, most conveniently, it started and ran without a hassle. Problem solved (or at least delayed) which was good enough for me.
Now, as we were parked right in front of a lovely hotel we decided to pop in for dinner. What a treat! We had a delicious and filling meal and enjoyed the evening immensely. If it were not for the car playing up, we would in all likelihood not even have noticed that hotel.
Ultimately we not only achieved our objective for the day but enjoyed a lovely evening together. I’m thankful for what at the time seemed like a failed undertaking requiring work, more planning and of course stress. I’m also proud of my efforts to improve my character for the better and here’s to another day of just letting life happen. 🚚
