I’ve moved from one country to another, and back again. I’ve moved from one coastline to the other, and back again (six times). But, by FAR, the worse move EVER was the one from one end of the street to the other.
The 27th move of my life involved losing some of my most prized possessions that made it from Fort Campbell to Korea, Korea to Texas, then from Virginia to Japan. Somehow, however, they couldn’t make it up the street.
Housing here in Norfolk was privatized (I can hear the collective “Oh, no.”) and along with the privatization came renovations. Renovations that required us to move from our initial Norfolk on base home to a newly painted and renovated unit ten doors down. Siggggh. My advice: If you can avoid this, please do it. They broke an entire set of kitchen dishes (not bad, if you can work it–I recommend a $50 to the movers), a few very important photo frames and a horse bridle that belonged to my very first horse. What was worst was that, along with losing my hat rack, they lost my collection of horse ribbons from when I was a young (no snickering) girl. I can never replace them and pictures just aren’t the same.
Some of the ribbons I won when I was just six years old. My very first barrel racing ribbon was in the lost bag, along with my ribbons from combined training as a teenager. Some of the ribbon survived 19 moves before this one.
I can’t for the life of me understand why it was so hard to get our belongings down the street. Our headboard was scratched on the 1/10-mile trek, but miraculously survived moves from Virginia to Japan to California to Virginia with nary a mark. WTH? Our treadmill, which doubles as my clothes hanger, was never the same either. The wall charger for it was gone when it arrived at its final destination.
Two days ago, when we were hanging up our winter coats on the new hall tree my husband built, my husband muttered, “I wonder what ever happened to that old hat rack…” I’m telling you, my theory is that whoever has it is probably hanging my darn ribbons on it.
6 Comments
Wow. That’s all I’ve got.
On a lighter note, I’m happy to know someone who kept their horse bridle. I grew up with horses and miss it a lot. My horse tack is collecting dust in my parents basement. Guess I’ll keep it there so it doesn’t become “lost”.
Sorry to hear about your situation…how horrible. We had many things that were missing, when we received our personal property too, with our last PCS move. It’s unbelievable how people can steal your things and/or ruin them because of negligence.
My goodness! I hate losing sentimental things. I will always remember what Suzanne Summers said after suffering from a fire in her home. She said… never say “its just stuff” to someone in these situations. She said it is easy for people to say this but that is because it isn’t their stuff. I thought she made a great point.
We got so lucky, we didn’t lose a single thing in the move fr one base to the other for the privitization however I haven’t finished unpacking… Then again, the important things were in YOUR garage anyway so I was cool w/ anything else that could have gone missing.
I heard that the worst moves are the local ones, especially if the military/housing has their hand in it. We are expected to move for renovations in April–They cannot lose the hardware to the bunkbeds, because that happened on the move to this house. As for the sentimental items, I try to keep those close at hand or stored at my mom’s house. One thing I always remember is that the most important things are in the car/plane with me. In the end, it is my family that matters most and everything else are just THINGS. The emotions I assign to THINGS aren’t so deep that mourn their loss. I guess if items get stolen, the person that took it needed it more than I did.
That is just terrible. When we moved this last time, one thing was taken. The husbands only black suit. Of all the things?? Strangeness.
Sentimental things are such treasures…what a bummer!