So you’ve decided to move? Seems simple right? Just pack up your belongings and take them to your new place! Well if only it were that simple, there really should be a how to guide for moving… maybe there is, but does it include how to move out of the state? What about how to move without help, or how to move to another culture? Maybe how to move out of polygamy? Let’s add how to move in an ever changing world…
Why is moving so hard and stressful? Please tell me if moving is a piece of cake for you then what and how do you do it? Ok if you hire out the help, well that’s sweet, I want to know if it’s non-stressful for those who don’t have the money and luxuries to hire out the responsibilities of the move and putting everything away in your new place!! And remember even good stress is still stress on the body, mind, and spirit!
I’ve had 2 BIG moves in my life aside from leaving polygamy, and foster care house hopping around the salt lake valley before I got adopted… #leavingpolygamyproblems #fostercarenotsofun #teenwithoutahome
Anyways, what’s the BIG secret to make moving easier? GREAT QUESTION! Sorry if you thought this post has all the answers, but I’ll share the steps we took that helped us!!
NO BIG DEAL, RIGHT??! Just answer these few questions and you should have it narrowed down to a few top 5 choices !!!
Except seriously, to answer these questions it took days of researching during my free time! Sure you could willy-nilly just answer the questions pick a place and move in… that could turn out fine…. BUT for me, I don’t like to leave my fate up to chance, and gamble the roll of the dice, especially, with kids involved, who count on me to be the grown-up providing them with a safe and loving environment they can grow up in! #makingthingseasierbymakingthemharder
OK, yes I probably am making things harder, BUT when I get there, and something goes wrong, I know that this was still the best place for me, I have most things figured out because when you get where you’re going there’s so many more questions to answer…. #itsooverwhelming and having these basics figured out can help with the stress levels down the road!!
Let’s not forget the BIG struggle unpacking, and making all your items fit in your new space so you can function!
These are all challenges those leaving polygamy face… Where do they start? What do they need? How do they get from where they’re at to their goal? Really this is the BIG question for everyone in every goal, RIGHT?!
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Waaoooohh!!!! Plot twist in our move
In the midst of all our unpacking, my inlaws came from their hotel they had with our girls (because we still only had one bed set up) but they came in saying “have you guys seen the news? There’s a BIG storm, possible hurricane coming at us!” We were like “um no, we have no TV, no internet, what storm?”
So we look up the news on our phones to see we have 36 hours before Hurricane Harvey hits the Texas coast, and Houston is notorious for flooding!
The shelves were emptying, lines wrapped throughout the stores like it was Black Friday, but NOTHING WAS ON SALE!
We scramble trying to prepare, getting food, water, asking every local insight what we need to know about our specific area in preparing! My husband even ran and got us internet service that he set up himself, rather than waiting for the xfinity worker to make the rounds to us! He knew we needed a link to the news to know what was going on!
We’ve never been to Houston, we haven’t a clue to know which roads and areas are more likely to flood! We reached out to social media and got great advice on prepping for Hurricane Harvey! We lived through a category 1 hurricane and a couple tropical storms when we lived in the Caribbean on St. Kitts. So we were feeling rather prepared, and new we’d just be stuck inside a few days, while the storm ran its course!
We were never prepared for what happened next, the morning after Hurricane Harvey, which became a category 4 by landfall, and what it did to the city of Houston! Waking up to the news of floods, and constant warnings of tornados in a city I barely knew was terrifying!! I had literally been to maybe 5 places in this whole city, while trying to set our house up and prepare for the hurricane!!
I had no idea what the addresses were, and the streets were, where the floods and tornados were happening!!! The sky was dumping buckets of water down, and I watched from my windows trying to decide if we were flooding because the water was coming down so fast it was hard to tell if it was draining!!
As I sat there in the closet, and my phone alarmed again about a tornado in my area, I realized my kids didn’t know what to do if a tornado hit… so I grabbed my family, and taught my daughters about tornados and we made an emergency plan of where to go if a tornado was hitting us! We checked in hours later to make sure they remembered the signs of a tornado and the emergency plan!
The second day my anxieties were so high I almost felt crippled… like I couldn’t do anything but sit frozen in front of the TV!!! My father in-law suggested we see how close the bayous and floods were to us… we ventured out when the rain let up… this actually really helped because I learned the floods were still 3 miles away in one direction and 2 miles in another!
Knowing my surroundings gave me hope and a sense of security!
Every few hours we would venture out when the rain was calmer to see how close the floods were closing in on us… devastation was piling up in the news!
And to be honest, the TV footage was not giving the reality of the situation justice!! Maybe it was just me, but at times the news felt like a movie or TV show where I was removed from it, like the people on the screen were acting, maybe it’s a green screen BUT no, it was REAL!! I started seeing so many posts through social media stating the footage was making it look worse than it was, so shared a video of an area that wasn’t even as bad as others!
People from around the world started judging and criticizing stating we should have evacuated! BUT where would we have all gone? The news reports that the hurricane affected 6 million people in southern Texas…. that’s over 3 million if just half of us left!! The airports were closed, so with a 48 hour notice that a storm is coming people expect 6 million people to evacuate to the middle of America?? That’s unrealistic on so many levels!!
It’s so sad I remember thinking stuff like that with previous hurricanes BUT I now have the perspective for 2 sides of this kind of tragedy! When it’s not you, your home, or family you see the news think how sad, hope everyone is ok…. you even judge some victims thinking, why did they stay when they knew a big storm was coming, but then you move on with life, just getting random updates in your social media feed or news….
But when it does affect you than you sit glued to the TV, news, and every update in case in any moment you need to take cover… you can’t just go about your day because you could have your house wiped away, a flash flood, a tornado touch down, need to evacuate!! You can’t just up and leave because where do you go? Everyone doesn’t have means to just drive to some random hotel hours and hours away to get out of the storm… you can’t hide in your closet all day because what if the tornado isn’t even gonna hit you? You gotta eat… you can’t leave your house cuz what if the roads you’d take are flooded, oh ya and those tornados … you hit high levels of extreme stress and anxiety that you turn the TV off and try to have 30 mins of “business and life as usual”, but the screaming winds and buckets dropping down make you turn it back on to see if anything has changed… is now the time to run to the closet???
So long story short… there’s no simple answer to just run away every time there’s a storm, and others lives may be going on, but those in the storm are on pause until we know we’re safe!
I still can’t believe how different I see this type of situation now that I’ve experienced it from multiple perspectives!
Also -side note- there was that order-polygamist mindset that crept in at times, wondering if God was punishing me! I helped someone escape polygamy about 5 days before moving to Houston, and I get here just in time for Houston to start experiencing the worst hurricane and flooding they’ve ever had!!
I started to feel guilty, the same feeling I’ve had so many times, that others are collateral damage in my punishments from God! Yes, crazy thinking right!?! But the order has taught us that when we do bad, hurt the order, etc. then God punishes us….. and when something bad is happening, it’s God punishing us!!
But being out for as long as I have been and processing so much, I was able to snap out of that mindset using the healthy coping skills I have learned! I used rational thinking and challenged my thoughts!
- Reminded myself that I am not so powerful to cause a hurricane of mass destruction!
- Reminded myself that God doesn’t actually punish people, and let others be collateral damage in the wake!
- Reminded myself that the order teachings are not true!
- And lastly, reminded myself that what I’m feeling guilty about, helping someone leave, wasn’t me actually doing anything wrong! —this all started to help me put it in perspective and not allow those feelings of guilt to stay!
Unstress Yourself. (2015). 7 Best coping skills worksheets from around the web. Retrieved from http://www.unstressyourself.com/best-coping-skills-worksheets/
So what started out as a moving advice post has quickly taken a turn of events as life around me unfolded!! But the secret is to be flexible and roll with the changes! Embrace the new!!
************** UPDATE **************
Turns out the people in the order were saying that Hurricane Harvey was God punishing me, and coming to get me…… I don’t even know what to say to that…. my first reaction was “well your God missed”…. my second reaction #REALLY you guys really think this??? What seriously is wired so wrong in our brains in the order that we really believe this stuff???
PEOPLE DIED, PEOPLE LOST EVERYTHING…. and you guys in the order really think God would do that to people just go get to me, and then miss me? I was never flooded… sure I was emotionally effected, that’s a natural response to a tragedy!!! BUT that’s not gonna stop me from helping people who need it. I am not afraid of YOUR God!!! He only controls YOU… It’s beyond silly to believe that I caused Hurricane Harvey in the sense that God was coming after me…. yes that order guilt creeps in, but let’s be real here… that’s ridiculous!!
Resources:
Unstress Yourself. (2015). 7 Best coping skills worksheets from around the web. Retrieved from http://www.unstressyourself.com/best-coping-skills-worksheets/
