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There are a lot of logistics involved in moving long distance. There is finding new housing and getting the children enrolled in school. There is the finding and hiring of the best moving company, getting utilities turned off and turned on, arranging pet care, putting the old house on the market, and holding a garage sale to get rid of all the stuff you don't want to move. After handling all of that, there was still something that I found to be more important than any of these things: dealing with the emotional strain of moving.

Leaving somewhere that I had called home for some time can be considered a loss, similar on a smaller scale to grieving for a loved one. This was true even when the move was for very positive reasons: a promotion. I was asked to leave Cleveland, Ohio for Austin, Texas. I never expected to go through all of the classic steps of grieving: disbelief, yearning (experiencing a sense of loss), anger, depression, and finally acceptance. Being unexpected, they were not as recognizable as when one suffers the loss of a love one, and the degree of intensity of each stage was probably a lot less, but the stages were there none the less. This progress could of course be expected to appear even more in the case of someone moving from a very stable, establish situation, more so than mine was as a young man. Let's take a look at each of the stages and how they might apply to someone moving long distance.

The disbelief stage is also referred to as denial or numbness. Think how you might feel when reflecting on little things to which you have become accustomed over a long period of time. Think of the favorite park you might walk or jog through; the best place to get ice cream; the short cuts down side streets to avoid traffic. These are some of the little details that lead to a comfort level with our given surroundings. They are also things that we might not prepare ourselves to live without when we move and therefore not recognize them as a source of numbness when trying to settle in our new home. The denial that these little things are important to us, and not dealing with the loss, might result in our not feeling "at home" in our new surroundings and wondering why we are not more excited about the new opportunities we face.

When we do reflect on and even dwell on the things we leave behind, we may begin to experience the yearning or the sense of loss stage of grief. Especially if one were involved in community activities or had an active social life.

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