Things I've learned about moving from the movies

I’m packing my bags, I’m boxing up my books and I’m gathering all those half used tubes of facemask from the bathroom cabinet that I ‘might use later’.

I’m getting out of town.

Even though I’ve moved many times before; dragging my suitcase of memories and various plastic dinosaurs all over Sydney, the actual reality of moving has withered in my memory.

Moving day is traumatic. Your friends end up hating you, your muscles end up hating you, you end up hating all your possessions, and the neighbours hate you for all the shit you end up dumping on the footpath. But at the end of the day the promise of a brand new life glows on the horizon and, just like that, the horrible ordeal of moving day is banished from your mind. That was part of your old life. You needn’t think of it ever again.

But, if you’re like me you will be forced to think about it again as you wander from rental to rental like a debutante with a dance card at some endless, disappointing ball. You haven’t moved your last moving day yet. Not by a long shot.

So, with the impending moving day growing closer, I cast my mind to the only true memories I have of moving. Like most aspects of my life my understanding of moving house is framed entirely from what I have seen in movies. Here is what I have come to expect.

The people in my new town will hate me



If I’ve learned anything from movies like The Karate Kid and Footloose it’s that there is no way I’m going to fit in my neighbourhood. I just know there will be one day when my boyfriend gets frustrated with me and tells me to “go outside and make some friends” and I’ll head out on my bike to explore the town, and a bunch of tough kids will make fun of me for my out-of-town clothes and accent, and they’ll say things like “that ‘aint how we do things ‘round here!” and I’ll come home with a black eye and scream “Everything sucks here! I wish we never left home!”

Still, I suppose I’ll learn some incredible skill like karate or dancing or back flips so that’s a pretty good trade off.

Things will get left behind. Important things



While I’ve been ruthlessly tossing possessions into the charity pile in an effort to lighten my load I can’t help but think of Toy Story. When Woody and Buzz thought they might get left behind in Andy’s move they staged a death defying mission in pursuit of the moving van. I truly hope that beloved paperbacks, pot plants, and kitchen utensils that will inevitably get left behind feel a similar strong bond to me, their owner, and do everything within their inanimate means to follow me across town and meet me at my new place. If you’re in Sydney in the next few weeks and you see a bunch of wooden spoons and old pencil cases trying to cross the road like Woody and the gang in Toy Story please, slow down and let them pass.

The place will probably be haunted



Ok, I’m moving into a red brick apartment and not a gothic turreted mansion on top of a spooky hill but YOU NEVER KNOW. If movies like Poltergeist, The Shining and Paranormal Activity are anything to go by I can look forward to a host of evil spirits and forces compelling me to run screaming from my new place before the ink on the lease has even dried. I suppose it would probably serve me right. After all, I did try to eliminate the competition during the open inspection by shivering and saying loudly to no one in particular “Isn’t this the murder house?”

My friends will become vacuous ninnies



This is something I learned from an awful montage in the Sex and The City movie in which Carrie’s friends sit on the bed drinking champagne while Carrie changes in and out of every garish dress she has ever bought in order to decide which ones to keep. For some reason her friends find it incredibly entertaining to watch her parade up and down in front of her wardrobe like an indulged child with a dress-up box putting on a fashion show. I don’t think my friends would stand for this but I guess something about the smell of all those cardboard boxes and packing tape sends people into giddy whirls of excitement. What is ordinarily tedium becomes a heady thrill. It’s probably a bodily defense mechanism, like hormone rushes during childbirth.

The locals will change me for the better



After the initial Ralf Macchio-style altercations I have with the locals I will eventually learn that their regional ways can teach me a great deal more. As I learned from New in Town when Renee Zelwegger’s cold business-woman heart was melted by the cheery parochial people of Minnesota, people in different towns are always better than you. You see, it’s a well-known fact that people who live in small communities don’t value book learnin’ intelligence but they are more emotionally sophisticated than any city dweller could ever be. I’m technically moving from one part of the city to a different, equally populated part of the city but I’m sure I’ll find a group of quaint oddballs who’ll teach me to be truly happy.

The moving day itself will be total hell, and the movers will be pricks



There’s just no getting around this. I grew up with this Popeye cartoon, A Haul in One, on VHS so it’s imprinted on the inside of my skull. In the cartoon Popeye and Bluto are hired by Olive Oyl move house and they’re total shitheads about it. They compete for her affections by throwing her furniture around and beating each other up. In the end it’s all’s well that ends well but I hope for Olive’s sake that she wasn't paying them by the hour.



And, of course, all my fears were compounded by watching the 1988 Richard Pryor comedy Moving, in which every conceivable problem arises for the mild mannered Arlo Pear and his family. I fully expect to be a depleted wreck by the time I arrive in my new place but at least I know that the joy of starting afresh will soon blur the trauma of moving day. At least, until our lease runs out again.