Leaving it all behind (except the junk): Surviving the chaos of international moves

The gruelling task of packing up your life is monstrous, but once the dust has settled, things fall back into place

SLOUGH, ENGLAND:

So you want to move abroad, do you? Pack everything up and into a 40-foot container, send it on a boat, board a plane and start your life afresh? Walk away from everything you know and go on an adventure?

As someone who has moved from Kuwait to Pakistan to the UK to the US to South Africa and back to the UK within the past 20 years - with the last three moves having taken place within a span of a nerve-wracking four years – I can assure you that living out of a suitcase is not the glamorous Insta-friendly lifestyle people online would like you to think it is.

Naturally, there are upsides to leaving. For a start, there is no tortuous Urdu homework for you to decipher. Nor are there mandatory weddings to attend (unless you move to Toronto or Michigan, where you will unearth some extremely social relatives you never knew existed.) But it all comes with the hefty price tag of leaving behind your family and sustaining your relationship on WhatsApp video calls. And that is just the emotional cost of relocating. The actual gruelling task of packing up your life is so monstrous that it is definitely something you should wish on your worst enemies. Want a quick snapshot of what that’s like? Strap in.

Leaving it all behind

First, there is the unbridled joy that is paperwork. You think you know all about this when you fill out reams of visa paperwork tracing your lineage back to the Jurassic period, but wait! There is more! For example, when you pack your house into a container, for insurance purposes, you need to create a spreadsheet listing every item you are shipping across along with its monetary value. Yes, this includes teaspoons.

Then, there is the actual packing. I will now allow a moment of silence for my disorganised chaos queens, the ones who have to steel themselves with a deep breath before plunging an arm into the forbidding depths of a wardrobe to scour for a matching dupatta. Good luck sorting through your junk to see what you can bear to part with, although of course, you will commence your move with the stern announcement, “We are not hauling any junk across the ocean!” Pro tip: do not accidentally throw out your degree during this cleaning frenzy. This is a bad idea. Do, however, throw away holey pillowcases, notebooks from your university days and that deflated balloon from behind the sofa. It is not goodbye forever; they will defy the laws of physics and turn up in the container on the other side. This happens with every move. No one knows why.

Finally, the dreaded leaving day arrives. You will want to weep like a newborn babe at the prospect of saying goodbye to your home. Although of course, it is no longer your home. It is an empty shell. Every treasured piece of its soul has been packed away into that beastly container. All of which must come out again and be rehomed. Somehow. But that is a problem for Future You. You idly wonder what it will take to set the container on fire, or maybe tip it into the ocean. You even briefly consider pulling off a Monica Geller and tipping the removal guys to take care of it for you. However, you have little time for such wishful thinking because your spouse will intervene at this juncture to enquire why you are wasting time mulling over brick and mortar when you could be memorising the driving laws of (insert destination here). You will need all your strength to not slap this spouse. As you drive away from your shell of a home for the last time, you will resentfully realise that REM got it completely backwards. It is most definitely not easier to leave than to be left behind.

Finding a home again

Once you arrive and attempt to navigate crazy roads in this strange land where people drive on the wrong side of the road, you will have to find a home more or less immediately if you have children in tow. This is because schools, in general, do not like to assign space to a child unless that child comes with a permanent address within that school’s district. (If you are happy to throw money at a private school, however, they won’t care if you’re commuting from the moon.)

So off you go to find a home, where you must navigate property websites. Here you will discover that property photographers and Pakistani bridal makeup artists have a lot in common. Somehow, their cameras can transform a north-facing cave into a sun-dappled palace. After viewing forty such caves, you will move into one at random, because you really need to get these kids enrolled at a school. More pertinently, your container has arrived and needs to be emptied. Congratulations! All the items you took to the tip have also made it! Lock yourself in a bathroom for a hearty cry. You will have reached well past the end of your tether at this point. Still, there is a silver lining. When you all step out for dinner that night (because cooking is out of the question on this fine day), allow yourself a minor victory when the spouse who was giving you grief about driving laws forgets which side of the road you all drive on now and turns onto oncoming traffic.

The silver lining

But all is not lost. As Kate Middleton so poignantly said in her latest video (albeit under slightly different circumstances), out of darkness can come light. Once the dust has settled, you eventually learn to drive like the maniacs of your adopted country. You stop turning onto oncoming traffic. You find a semi-decent school that your children tolerate. And you realise that just like every house you have ever lived in claims a piece of your heart, so does every country you have ever moved to. Every place gives you a gift, and it is up to you to take it or leave it.

You see, I have learned a lot over the course of my many moves. Moving from a bubble in Kuwait to the free-for-all roads of Karachi, I became a bus whisperer and conquered the 11C, riding solo all the way from Jauhar to Sadar and back. In the UK, I moved a step up and earned my wings by learning how to drive. In the Prudential Centre in New Jersey, I learned that Michael Bublé's liquid caramel voice in concert will seep through your bones and move you to tears. In South Africa, I bore witness to the most glorious red and gold sunsets splashed on God’s own canvas. And now that I am back in the UK in the house I once bid a teary farewell to, I know that it doesn’t matter where you live. Home is the place where you have dinner every night. It doesn’t matter if it’s in a north-facing cave or a sun-dappled palace, as long as it’s yours.

I have learned that those stolen moments on WhatsApp video calls make you cherish the people you left behind in a way you never would have thought possible. And more than any of those things combined, I have learned to lock up my degree in a drawer and never, ever throw it away in a cleaning frenzy.

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