I’ve moved plenty of times. Within a city. Across a state. From West to East and East to West. From North to South and back again. I’ve lived all over the United States. Any time there’s a move, a massive to-do list materializes around closing up shop in the current venue and opening afresh in a different location. The list of what needs to happen seems to self-populate, then overpopulate.
Some of that stays true for an international move — the old standbys remain: find a place to live, pack, set a departure date. Some new ones pop up, though: what do I need to do to get a visa? is my passport up-to-date? do dogs need passports? how do I look for a job in a country in which I do not speak the languages? how do we get on House Hunters International? So, while many Americans were planning what to do for Superbowl Sunday, my husband and I were sitting down to plan out what we knew to plan out for an international relocation.
Backwards planning, here we go:
Husband’s first day on the job is April 1.
We want at least a few days to adjust to the time change (9 hours), so let’s plan on March 23rd-ish.
Holy crap! Those plane tickets are expensive!
Is it any cheaper if we make about 14 stops along the way?
The dogs can’t make 14 stops along the way. Someone has to fly direct with them.
I wonder how much stuff we can manage to fit in a suitcase to bring on a flight.
“Hey, by the way, what are we doing with all our stuff?”
“What do you mean what are we doing with all our stuff?”
“Do we ship it all to Switzerland?”
“That sounds like an insane cost. It’s expensive enough to move within the country, but, overseas would be nasty.”
“So what are we going to do with all our stuff?”
“Mmmm… sell it?”
“All of it?”
“Or most of it?”
“That sounds like some insane logistics. Who will be here taking photos, creating posts, scheduling people to check out our stuff or pick it up?”
“Mmmm… Well, I have to go to work every day,” I gave Husband a you-know-what-I-mean look, and he gave me an Ain’t-No-Way-I’m-Doing-All-This response, so I said, “I guess we better get started.”
“Let’s start with the bikes,” suggested Husband. “They take up so much space in the garage anyway, and I hate how crowded it gets in there.”
“Yeah, if you help me bring them out, I can handle the bike posts.”
I opened the garage door, stepped outside, and Husband and I started dragging bikes up the driveway. I took pictures of their frames, their handlebars, their wheels, etc.
“Are you going to post them on Facebook Marketplace or Craigslist or OfferUp or what?” he asked.
“Yes,” I said. “Only I can’t access my Facebook account to use Facebook Marketplace.”
“Why not?”
I sighed heavily. “Ugh. New phone. Different computer. They don’t believe I’m me and I’ve no way to prove it anymore.”
“Well, just use mine.”
After three hours having the bikes up for sale, I decided this was not going to work. I could not stand the bombardment of emails asking if any of our eight bikes were still available or haggling for a cheaper price or suspiciously requesting that a distant relative pick up a bike after asking for Zelle or Venmo information. If a handful of bikes caused this much headache, what would it look like to sell almost everything we own?
Husband and I are thrifty shoppers. We do not disparage goods that belonged to someone else before we encounter them, and we welcome their story into our home. We have picked up numerous pieces of free furniture next to our neighbors’ mailboxes, and, if there’s a garage sale nearby, we head over with our vision piqued for a few key items. (I won’t tell you what they are because I’m not going to invite the competition.)
“Maybe we have a garage sale,” Husband thought out loud. “At least then all our stuff goes at once. Or several garage sales.”
“That’s probably wise,” I said.
Even as I voiced it, I thought it sounded exhausting. People are exhausting. Lack of structure is exhausting. A garage sale is both lots of people swarming in waves and hours and hours long right outside the door that leads to my very comfy bed — which I am not selling until I absolutely have to.
“I’m going to look into estate sales,” I said as the notion occurred to me. I would definitely pay someone to handle this mess for me.
So that’s what we did. I found the numbers for a couple of local companies, handed them off to Husband, and he did the rest. Set up appointments with them, selected one to use, set the dates, and we were on our way.
“Add it to the calendar!” Husband said. “The last week of February into the first week of March.”
“Why a whole week?” I asked.
“Because they do everything for us.”
“What do you mean everything?”
“Everything. They organize all our stuff and price it during the week so that on the weekend they are ready to have people shop. Then they run it like a store. They don’t even want us around.”
“That sounds awesome!” I declared.
“And get this?” he said. “The woman who will be in charge of our estate sale is named Richelle.”
I smiled. “Well, it’s meant to be.”
“Indeed. But anyway, we’ve got to be out of the house by the final week of February — and we have to have gone through everything in the house to know what we’re bringing to Switzerland and what we’re not so it can get sold. We need our suitcases so we can pack them and see what fits. We need some boxes to…uh… will your parents let us store some things?”
“You mean some stuff before we find a permanent apartment.”
Yes, in the meantime, Husband’s company committed to finding us a temporary apartment — three months on their dime. I mean, on their Swiss franc — because finding an apartment in Zurich is notoriously difficult. And what do we know about where to live in Zurich?
“Yeah. We’re bound to have some things we don’t need to travel with but will ultimately need while we live there.”
“Or want.” I thought of my antique books, my collection of Jane Eyre, the Ephesians study I’d written in college.
“Keepsake type stuff, too.”
“Yeah, they’d probably let us,” I told him. “I’ll ask my dad, buy suitcases for everyone since we only have one or two that remain usable, and figure out where we are going to stay during this estate sale while I still have work and the kids still have school.”
“And I’ll ask around to see if anyone will let us stay with them.”
“Great.”
“Speaking of school, we need to sit down and determine the boys’ last day.”
“And mine!” I eagerly jumped in.
We met with Older Son’s high school counselor to gather information to make our decision and discovered that, because his school was on a trimester system, grades closed on March 7th on the day of his last final.
Perfect. March 7th would be his last day. And, since it turned out Younger Son’s grades closed on March 8th, we made that his last day and informed both schools of the plan.
“How about I finish before them?” I asked, thinking about how challenging it would be to live out of a suitcase at someone else’s home or in a hotel during the week of the estate sale, all while teaching a full time schedule.
“That’d be nice,” said Husband, “but I think I’ll have to punch some numbers and see what we can manage.”
GRRRRRR!!! Stupid logic! Can’t I just stop working now? I’m ready. Say the word. [see more about this mindset in the original post, The Preface] No? Sigh. Okay. Fine. Let math have its way. As always.
We ended up setting my last day a week after the boys’ left school: March 15th. The Ides of March. For an English teacher, it was fitting, but I’d rather have gone out on Pi Day. I didn’t want to be Caesar in this play! No et tu, Brute for me.
After weeks of revisions, the final [simplified — because I can’t even follow the madness of the full, complex, arrows-everywhere, to-do list post-its layered on top full version] schedule of events looked rather like this:
April 1: Husband’s first day on the job
March 26: Everyone arrives in Zurich March 25: KZ departs from LA with the dogs on a direct flight to Zurich
March 22: Husband and Boys depart from LA with stops to see relatives in different states along the way to Zurich
March 18-22: Sell KZ’s car
March 18: Leave San Diego, stay in LA
March 16: Goodbye Gathering
March 15: KZ’s last day teaching
March 10-15: Sell Husband’s car
March 7&8: Kids’ last day of school
February 28 – March 3: Estate Sale (find a place to stay)
{Use Backwards Planning to make your messy list something cleaner.}
Sounds simple enough, right? Yes, that is the simple list. — Oh, what the heck. Just to give you an idea, here are some of the to-do items flying out from that simple list.
Dog training — do they have to be crated or do they go in the cabin on the flight?
Rent out house — company? utilities? etc.
Fingerprints to FBI ASAP! (Visa)
U.S. Phone Numbers/Cell Phone situation
ALL Autopayments & Subscriptions — cancel
USPS Forwarding
Medical Records
Donation receipts
Electronic Waste
Shipping Guitars
You can see how these would have all sorts of arrows associated with them. It was chaos. It’s John Nash’s office after he was sent to the psychiatric hospital, or at least the film version of it.
It felt a bit like that, too. Not to belittle mental illness, but, my goodness, we felt the paranoia of missing something vital that would set us back or keep us from moving altogether, as well as the schizophrenia of a voice popping up, albeit our own, adding items and deadlines to the already haywire list. Something was bound to go wrong. It was only a matter of time before we found out what…
KZ Rochelle 