The idea of moving home is now our chief distraction – and a source of hope
Last year my boyfriend and I were supposed to move into our own place, but a change in our circumstances meant we could not. Still, we were determined to make it happen. Just as soon as the time was right. But we do not live in right times, we live in wrong times; a perpetual state of uncertainty where each year there is another emergency (climate, political, medical, all of the above), and another personal battle to fight fire in.
Eventually, a right-enough time did arrive. The owners of the flat we’re currently in said they wanted to sell up; an unexpected tax rebate delivered some extra cash; and when a place we loved (but were previously pipped to) became available, we thought: “Now is as good and bad a time as any.”
And so we’re moving – as soon as social contact is restored. When that will be, we don’t know, but the nourishing effect of possibility is felt. Days of work and worry are tempered by Pinterest boards and overemotional vacuum cleaner reviews (“Nice vac but only a 4m cord?! What a joke!”). The once-a-day chore of the washing-up becoming a thrice-daily necessity is made easy by the dream of the someday dishwasher.
Related: Covid-19 has taught me that soldiering on is not always a virtue | Coco Khan
I’ve seen a whole new side to my usually placid partner, who has become strangely authoritarian about decorating. I cannot get a word in edgewise; he is suppressing my input in the manner of a congressman attempting to filibuster the opposition. He hopes that, if he keeps talking about aspect ratio, I will capitulate (and he’s right). But even such stresses are a welcome reprieve of ordinariness in the madness. Perhaps it’s why our flat-move has become the chief distraction among friends and family, too. Life goes on; it always does. And while fear and panic spread, hope does, too.
