When You’re Getting Divorced and It's Time To Move Out
2-10-40.
No, I haven’t just shared my high school locker combination with you.
(It was never locked to begin with.)
These are numbers I share with my clients looking for help with their moves.
Every aspect of my business is something that I have had to deal with by myself.
Home organization check….prepping yourself for a major move….check, check, check, check…..clear an estate of a loved one…check, check, and check.
I have lived it and done it, and now I know how to do it better, which is where my business was born.
The concept of Home Perspective grew from my wish that I had someone like me to make it easier.
2 - The age of my daughter when our whole lives changed…
And jumped the tracks from the path we had been on and took a hard turn to an entirely different course. My marriage was over, and the dream house I had worked for years to make into our home had to be sold and put on the market ASAP. I was gutted, exhausted, and in disbelief that the life I thought I had was falling apart.
10 - The number of days I had to get the house on the market…
In fact, the Brokers Open fell on my Daughter’s 2nd birthday. It felt as if I couldn’t catch my breath, and I was petrified that if I actually stopped to process everything, I would spiral into a pile of tears and literally never stop. I thought I might drown like Alice in Wonderland. So I didn’t stop. I packed and downsized and gave away things I didn’t think I would need with such reckless abandon, but I still wonder where they’ve gone. “Hey, you’ve always liked colorful things- come and take my fiesta ware collection.” “Like time outdoors- great, come to take the fire-pit, you have 20 minutes to pick it up.” Hindsight being 20/20, I’m not even sure anyone really wanted any of these items, but I think they sensed that if they didn’t take them off my hands, they might be the proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back. So I sorted and purged, packed and mulched, and tried to keep moving and focus on just getting the task checked off the list so I wouldn’t cry. Somehow, it all got done even with a 2-year-old in tow.
40 - The number of days settlement took.
The house went on the market on my Daughter’s 2nd birthday, it sold 2 days later on what would have been my wedding anniversary. I still remember the realtor calling me to tell me that the house was under contract, which was exactly what you want. Unrealistically, I was hoping for a ridiculously long settlement, like just enough time to get her through the high school years. Nice try with that, it was a 40-day settlement. 40 days, hardly enough time for me to close up shop on my current life. 40 days to box up my life and move.
The day the movers came…
the house was packed and hollow and echoed upon giving them directions. It was a July day in Baltimore, and a heat advisory. I mothered the movers and made them drink Gatorade and eat snacks throughout the day, truly concerned that one might pass out.
I was so on the edge that I remember the head mover looking at me at one point and just asking me, “Are you okay? And then he quickly answered for me, “Sorry, dumb question, you’re not.” He hugged me as he saw my eyes well up with tears. I snotted and cried into his shoulder, not one of my best moments.
They were an amazing and sympathetic group; thankfully, no one passed out. They were considerate enough to give me a moment alone in the empty space before the truck pulled away. They reassured me that they would move me into another great house one day.
Moving is hard, stressful, overwhelming, and emotional. I entirely empathize with what my clients are feeling. Home Perspective is here to help in exactly the ways I know personally you need when you’re moving.
what does moving assistance include?
-Donate or consign your unwanted housewares and furniture to places that want them and just won’t take them, so you don’t cry.
-I will pack, label, and sort so that your move runs as seamlessly as possible.
-I will keep the movers fed and hydrated and promise not to let you cry and snot on them.
-I will ensure you know where the sheets, toothbrushes, and fresh towels are on your first night so you can shower and rest.
-I treat every client I move as if they are my closest friends.
-I will even let you cry into my shoulder if need be, because I believe life has a funny way of coming full circle.
Home Perspective is here to make your move easier.
Ashley Ingraham is a very organized Mom of a daughter in Baltimore, Maryland. Always creative she was a double major of Studio Art and Education at Furman University and spent the beginning of her career as a teacher in Baltimore City. After staying home with her daughter she founded Home Perspective to share her Organization skills and eye for design to make others homes and lives better. Her business has been featured in Baltimore Magazine, Oprah & Entrepreneur. When not busy helping people organize their lives she can be found at concerts all over the country or busy raising her tween daughter.