It's not just the wardrobe, right?

In the weeks before we moved to Beijing, I found it massively frustrating attempting to condense our lives into two suitcases each, balancing essential with luxury, need versus want. Most of the time, need obviously won out, though we did agree that some of the apparently unnecessary – the PlayStation, a photo album, a couple of our favourite books – were worth the luggage space for comfort. A peculiar comfort, I’ll admit, in rowing over Ni No Kuni because he thinks I’m just a ‘button basher’ during fights, and all he wants to do is fly around on our newly acquired dragon* but a comfort nevertheless.

However the rest of the time, as my pile of ‘definitely taking to China’ grew larger, K would roll out the ‘Just buy a new one over there’ argument. And I’d always reply, in a really not-annoying whine, ‘I don’t WANT to buy a new one. I bought the one I’ve got because I LIKE it.’ Aside from the fact we’ve had to extend our overdraft three times already setting ourselves up here, my wardrobe is my wardrobe because I liked all the things in it enough to buy them.

It’s not just the wardrobe, right? Of course it’s not, and some well-bargained sex favours secured me 12 pairs of shoes anyway, the point is that it tapped into a big picture fear about moving abroad. Knocking the bricks out of the life we’ve made.

The London flat we’ve just left is our first mortgaged property and we spent years buying and decorating for keeps. We filled the shelves my dad made for us with what we now know is around 15 40L boxes’ worth of books, we put up awesome 1960s curry house wallpaper in the spare room, and I was ridiculously happy with my fit-to-burst baking cupboards (plural).  I look in my kitchen here and we have one sharp knife, some cheap chopsticks and a miniature kettle. First world problems sure, but this is about our personal adjustment. It feels something like being a student again. We’ve gone back to ‘It’ll do for now.’

We’re not buying into the false economy of complete plastic tat, but we’re certainly not buying to take home with us. Faced with a trip to the hellmouth of Ikea, jetlagged and non-Chinese speaking, we got the best we could for our budget in the local Walmart and now own paper thin crockery with pink flowers on. We don’t have a vacuum cleaner and I swept the floor this morning, adding to this growing sense of playing house. To be fair, I’ve always felt like I was playing house if I dared attempt any actual cleaning, so perhaps that's by the by.

Those years were us putting together a space for ourselves that we completely love, and for now it feels a little like we have handed it wholesale to someone else while we use too-small glasses inexplicably adorned with ‘YOUR LIFE VITAMIN.’

It’s not that we won’t get all these material goods back of course, and I’m incredibly thankful that it’s my sister-in-law living in the flat - otherwise the temptation to pack up the entire shebang into bubble-wrapped storage would have been too much (and probably would have postponed us leaving by about ten years). Plus packing up also has its advantages. We cleansed ourselves of about 20 binliners of charity shop drops, and both tried to use the opportunity to get rid of the other’s detested wardrobe items. For better or worse that didn’t work, because his trampy duffle coat is still not in its rightful place of the middle of a raging bonfire, and I brought my animal print harem trousers with me.

But again, it’s not just the stuff, right? Of course it’s not. It’s our jobs, our friends and family. Our lifestyle, our whole lives. But also our beloved bookshelves. Onwards and upwards, my lovers – there’s more stuff and lives to be had in Beijing, I know.

 

* Yes, we have been playing one character on a PS3 game together. I like to think of it as a testament to the strength of our marriage. Or just a test