Our First Military PCS: Lessons We Learned
Boston Public Garden, Boston, MA
Our First Military PCS: Lessons We Learned
You can also find the Vlog on YouTube (see below!).
It has officially been 6 months since Lucas and I moved to the other side of the country. Where has the time literally gone?
Although we still have many more months (ahem... years) remaining here in New England, we have already learned a thing or two during our first PCS Moving experience. I’ve had a few friends reach out asking about how we’re settling in now that it’s been 6 months so I decided to write it all out. To those of you reading, who happen to also have had experiences moving to new homes, please let me know if you can relate to some of the lessons we learned!
Given that this was our very first PCS move, please know that we are NOT moving experts. This blog post was written solely based on our personal experiences of moving for the very first time. I’m deeply curious on whether or not others can relate to the lessons we’ve learned.
LESSON #1: Although moving can create obstacles, it can also create healthy boundaries.
This lesson snuck up on me. You might think that moving would create division and separation due to obvious physical distance. You also might think that moving during a pandemic would be a terrible experience. But it really depends on how you look at it.
Because social distancing became the norm in 2020, moving allowed for the removal of the temptation of wanting to go out and see friends. So maybe this lesson was learned due to the influence of current events; however, I truly believe that this can be true in other moving scenarios too.
Moving has allowed Lucas and I to establish our preferred routines without the interruption or opinions of other people outside of our home. I’ve also discovered that I tend to be the person who tries to be “available” for everyone at all times of the day. I have learned since moving that it’s so much healthier to reach out and respond to others only when I have the energy and capacity to do so.
I’ve really felt that since moving, I’ve been able to set some really healthy boundaries for once-demanding connections. I've especially learned a truer work/life balance!
LESSON #2: Staying connected isn’t as difficult as it seems in a world filled with expanding technology.
I think it’s healthy to acknowledge that moving can put a damper on communication in general, so I won’t say that staying connected despite long-distance is easy. However, I truly disagree when people say that moving ultimately means you’ll eventually lose touch with friends or family.
If anything, technology can make it so easy for us to stay in touch with one another. Whether it’s scheduling phone calls (my mom literally calls me everyday haha), or through FaceTime or Zoom Calls over the weekend, technology can be used as a helpful tool. That said, it’s only as helpful as we want it to be, so it is 100% possible to stay in touch with loved ones as long as both sides put in the effort to do so.
LESSON #3: Keeping familiar furniture can bring a sense of “home” sooner than starting fresh entirely.
One of the biggest things I was worried about when planning to move was the idea of getting homesick too often. I’m not going to lie and say that I never get homesick -- that’s simply not true, but I am surprised that I don’t get homesick as often as I thought I was going to be. I LOVE Washington. My entire family and almost all of my support systems live in Washington, so of course I miss home sometimes.
But once our moving truck arrived, and I started to see the familiar furniture enter our new space, home didn’t feel as far away. I realized that using the furniture that Lucas and I had used at our first apartment in Seattle, made me feel like we were home much sooner than I anticipated. Maybe it’s just a mind trick… but I definitely stand with the fact that using familiarity with our couch, dressers, and decor, all collectively made our new apartment space feel more like “home”.
Don’t worry - I’m still planning on slowly upgrading our furniture ;) but in the meantime, the familiarity is helping with the transition to a new space.
LESSON #4: If you have movers, make sure to set aside the essentials in case they’re late (they’ll probably be late…).
If your movers arrive on-time, I will celebrate with you! But from what I gathered from other military families, movers are almost always never on-time. Our experience was not an exception to this, and our belongings arrived almost 3 weeks past the “final” date.
To prepare for a delay, I recommend to either set aside essential items, or plan to purchase them upon arrival. Some items I suggest are:
A suitcase of clothes, towels, a shower curtain, toiletries, a camping lamp (or two haha), an air mattress, a couple pillows, blankets, paper plates, plastic utensils, and basic cleaning supplies.
Of course the word “essentials” is subjective. Maybe you’d like to purchase or set aside actual cooking pots and pans - that’s totally fine too! Just make sure you plan accordingly. For Lucas and I, plastic utensils and paper plates ended up being our preference for meals just because we enjoyed trying out new restaurants and easy meals for the first few weeks.
LESSON #5: You’ll only start to love your new home if you allow yourself to.
And finally, my favorite lesson that we learned thus far. Moving to Boston was not a part of the 5-year plan. I mean, moving outside of Washington in general was not a part of the plan at all. But I learned very quickly that I only started to love living in New England once I allowed myself to get excited about exploring a new area.
Moving and starting new isn’t always fun and exciting, but for me, I started viewing this new home as temporary (because it is, if you think about the grand scheme of things). Instead of thinking, “We’re stuck here for XYZ amount of years,” I try my best to instead switch up my thinking to, “We have XYZ amount of years to make the most out of this experience.”
As soon as I made that shift in perspective, I really started to love living in our new state. I think we’re also just lucky that New England has so much to offer!
Which reminds me of a BONUS lesson -- Time moves so much quicker than you think.
I honestly can’t believe that it’s already been 6 months since we moved to Boston. So far, we’re blessed and are still having a positive experience. In the 6 months that we’ve been living here, we’ve discovered that winter wasn’t as bad as we thought it was going to be (We actually LOVED the snow. The roads were more maintained than they would’ve been back home in Washington), and we also discovered that there is SO much to see and do in the Northeast!
Stay tuned for more New England content coming up once the weather starts getting warmer and the travel conditions hopefully start getting safer!
Let me know if you can relate to these moving lessons we learned!
‘Til the next one,
Gen
