Moving home: a big challenge for a dyspraxic
Back in 2019, my partner and I finally bought a house. We were so pleased. It was the perfect location for us. It had a sun-bathed but biologically-barren urban garden that we could transform into our own little nature-friendly paradise.
After ten years of living alone in a studio flat I was so excited to finally be on the verge of living with my beloved partner. However, the process presented many dyspraxic challenges to overcome before I would feel relaxed and settled in.
For those of us with dyspraxia (developmental coordination disorder), moving home can place a unique set of visual-spatial and organisational obstacles to overcome.
Packing up
Packing your possessions probably sounds really simple to non-dyspraxic people. For me, it really isn’t.
I loved games when I was growing up – Trivial Pursuit, that kind of thing – but Jenga was never on my Christmas list.
Working out which items from my flat to pack in which order to make best use of the space available in the boxes provided just fried my brain.
I was 10 when the Game Boy came out in the UK. Like so many of my peers, I loved Tetris. Similar challenge to Jenga, right? Yet there’s something about moving from two to three dimensions that my dyspraxia just can’t cope with.
In a recent blog I described how I found maths at school more taxing when it involved three-dimensional shapes. I guess it’s the same processing difficulty.
Unpacking
Then comes the other side of the coin: unpacking those possessions and figuring out where they’re going to temporarily live while you’re configuring the living space. Again, this seems to come naturally to other adults.
But not me.
Organising which things will go where
And then we reach a phase so bewildering in its visual-spatial complexity that it leaves me completely out of my depth.
Certain accomplishments dazzle me: Aretha Franklin effortlessly hitting a high note, an elegant Roger Federer backhand, the wonderfully witty words of PG Wodehouse. Yet I’m equally at awe when I see someone map out where a large collection of items are going to be arranged in an as-yet-empty room. It’s like they have a dimension of mind’s-eye vision that bypassed my DNA. I’m so envious.
Going for my first run
I’ve always found that adjusting to the physical layout of a new environment takes me a day or two. I experience it on holidays, for example. On our third day in the new home I was itching to go for a run, something I normally do several times a week.
I’d only moved half a mile. The running route’s first 10% would be new to me; following that, the route would continue along one of my go-to 10km paths. Simple, right?
Yet for the first couple of runs I felt overly conscious of what I was doing over that initial stretch – like I couldn’t switch off and just enjoy the exercise. Like an effortful re-wiring process was placing the mapping part of my brain on high alert.
Decorating
Once we’d begun to settle, my partner quite rightly asked that we do some painting of the downstairs walls and ceiling. Sounds straightforward but I remember the visual-spatial processing as I worked my way around the home leaving me feeling dizzy.
I thought I might finally succeed at a DIY task, but I emerged from the painting-and-decorating experience feeling less like the tool-wielding middle-aged man society expected me to be than ever.
Conclusion
Ridiculously, the idea of ever moving again fills me with dread. I know the brain-frying aspects would only last days, yet it provokes all those avoidant feelings that used to hold me back.
After seven years the pear tree is 12 foot tall and bearing a fabulous bounty. The herbs are thriving. The pond has been inhabited by frogs. The garden is home to a wide diversity of insects – as the bats who visit at night would surely testify. We bought this place for the garden. It’d be a shame to ever leave the outdoor sanctuary we’ve worked so hard to nurture for nature.
We should just stay put for good, right? We never need to go through that moving hassle again, right?
Right?
