Moving on…
6 February 2025

Moving has been such a difficult but enlightening experience. You discover that you have many, many things that you do not need at all and some things that you need a bit of but have too much of. I gave away almost the same amount of clothes I kept and I still feel I have too many. 

Having single handedly packed away all my household items over the course of several weeks, I realised how important decluttering is and how we can find within ourselves so much energy to handle what we need to do. I barely slept, ate irregularly and counted 117 boxes and large bags made for carrying textiles all meticulously numbered and matched to an excel sheet that described in over 117 lines, the content of each box.

One of the movers did not find a number on one of the boxes and when I turned it around showing him the number, he laughed and said "why did I even think that you did not put a number on it" to which we all had a laugh despite being exhausted as the movers were helping me after their daily job was over. We then decided to add the numbers to all the other surfaces as well, where we could get through to them as the boxes were piled up.

When I thought back to how many times I have moved and sometimes lost or had to give away what I had, it seemed incredible:

1st move at the age of 6 months from Algeria to India 

Within India, moved around four times during childhood until the age of 7

Move at the age of 7 from Chennai, India to Tunis, Tunisia 

Within Tunisia moved around 8 times

Move to Geneva, Switzerland at the age of 21

Within Geneva moved around 7 times 

Move to Dubai in 2007 with my children

Within Dubai moved around 7 times before the last of my kids moved near Geneva, Switzerland

Moved from Dubai to India in 2018 for just 4-5 months

Moved to London, UK in December 2018

Within London moved twice
 
and now moving again away from London to an undisclosed location..

Moving on Up – M People