The Cost of Change: Leaving, Living, and Letting Go

diaryofafloppingfi
Jul 17, 2025
3 min read

Surrounded by Boxes

Today I write surrounded by boxes full of things that are all attached to memories and events that occurred throughout my boyfriend and I’s lives. It is amazing how many things we can collect, and memories that come flooding back from them. What’s even more amazing is that all these memories attached to things dies with us, and no one else will ever understand exactly what those things meant to us because they will never experience the memory that we relive every time we look at them.

Packing Up and Moving On

I’ve spent the entire day packing boxes and carefully stacking them into piles that won’t fall over. It’s hard to leave somewhere that you’ve been living for a few years, but when I moved in I knew that it wasn’t the last time I’d be moving because home ownership is the end goal. Unfortunately, home ownership is quickly becoming a pipe dream for most Americans due to high inflation and interest rates, or so they say.

I am personally not convinced that the housing market prices are not just so high because everyone is greedy and they think people will pay double or triple what a house is worth out of desperation to own a home because all housing prices are inflated. It is this same desperation that leads landlords everywhere to mistreat and overcharge their tenants. We’ve decided that our best chance of winning the housing game that is stacked against us is to not play and save up money for a while.

Change Means More Than Just a New Address

Moving also means changing everything and not just a shake up to routines. I have to make a list of everywhere to change my address, find a new grocery store, a new place to enjoy my morning coffee, find a place to exercise, and a lot more I’m sure I haven’t thought of yet. Saying goodbye to a place full of so many memories is hard, getting used to new routines are hard, and I’ve also got to find a new therapist to help me navigate all of this change because I’ll be out of area for my current therapist.

The Fear and Necessity of Change

Change is terrifying, but I have learned to look at it as a good thing even though it means leaving a lot of things that are familiar to me and some things I like including my favorite place to drink my morning coffee. Often, we have difficulty with change, and put off making decisions of all sizes. However, even not making a decision is still making a decision, and it will never be the decision that you want.

If you put off doing laundry, you won’t have clean clothes for an event, for work, or anything else you need to have good hygiene for. If you put off doing your taxes, it might snowball into costing you a lot more money unexpectedly. If you put off applying to college, you might end up not going or settling for one with less resources than you could have gone to. Making decisions is the most important thing we can do for ourselves, and maybe that is why it’s the hardest.

New Decisions New Beginnings

The mound of boxes we’re creating is a temporary monument to the lives we’ve lived up until now, and the promise of a bright future ahead of us. Sure it was hard to make the decision to uproot our lives, but it gives us more of an opportunity to establish something new, and hopefully find a house of our own some day soon. Making decisions, and change will always be the hardest and most necesary thing in life. In choosing change, we are also choosing ourselves, and the lives we want to build.

Have you ever made a big move or major life change? I’d love to hear your story in the comments!

The Diary Of A Flopping Fish and any posts or articles published on Diaryofafloppingfish.com are not reviewed by a therapist or medical or mental health professional. Resources are cited and opinion is opinion. No advice or opinions in any articles replace professional advice from a doctor, therapist, or any other kind of health professional. The author is not a licensed professional of any kind.