Moving as a couple story

I've been meaning to write down a funny episode that happened a couple weeks ago and it just keeps slipping away so here it is dangit.

We bought a table/chairs through a classified ad from a young couple with a baby. She was dutch and he was English and they were both very affable and friendly. When they heard we were new in town they were overflowing with good advice on where to buy things and cultural differences and so on.

At one point I think Christine asked them something along the lines of "So yeah big move! Did you find that moving brought you together, was it a bonding experience that strengthened your relationship?" To which there was a bit of nose wrinkling and laughter. She then said "Well, you know... There were times when I was just like grrr!" with a two hand motion that looked like a combination of pouncing and throttling.... there was a little bit of teeth baring, which I have to admit was cute coming from a small blonde dutch girl to a tall thick necked beefy english guy that could double as a bouncer.

And that was it. No "grrr! but...", just "grrr!".

If you've done a big move, you could probably relate. Once you get an address, bed, phone and internet, the pressure definitely eases off though. It wasn't all (or even mostly) bad, but there were a couple moments where we were really white knuckling it to the finish line. From a distance after the fact though, a lot of the problems seem a lot smaller and more manageable than they did at the time.

My friend Cara related a story of one time when she was panicked about doing badly on a test. Her dad kept asking her "so then what?" as in

"I'm going to do badly on a test"
"it means I could get a bad grade for the semester"
"it means I could fail the class"
"it means I could get kicked out of school"
"it means I could be destitute and homeless"
"it means that I'll be attacked by roving gangs of street dogs"
etc etc

to which then the remedy is to back up and just say whoa and double check that all the assumptions are right, e.g. what if your grade for the semester so far is a B+? You really think you're going to fail the test? And even if you do you're still going to fail the class? etc etc.

I guess the key is to be realistic/objective about how bad things really are. Moving is probably one of the bigger challenges though because if it's your first time through, you have little clue what's coming up next... And that could be a good thing!