Victoria Neill explores how packing and moving relates to her grief, and the changes in her relationship with ‘home’ since the loss of her dad.

I think there comes a point when you stop seeing cardboard boxes and start seeing every version of yourself you have had to pack away.

I stood in my room recently, looking at everything around me, and felt completely overwhelmed. Not because I did not know how to pack, but because every box seemed to represent another goodbye. Another place I had called home. Another version of my life I had carefully unpacked, settled into and quietly hoped might be the one that lasted.

‘Possessions are no longer just possessions’

Packing has become strangely emotional. Every move seems to ask the same questions. What do I keep? What do I let go of? What deserves a place in the next chapter? Where do I put my roots this time?

Possessions are no longer just possessions. I pack memories, identities and versions of myself. Each time, I find myself wondering whether the next place will finally be somewhere I get to stay.

Loss has a way of shaking your sense of safety. It does not only take people from you. It can quietly take your feeling of home too.

‘He believed life was meant to be lived fully’

Before my dad died, moving felt exciting. Adventure. Possibility. A fresh start.

We always settled into new places together as a family. My dad encouraged curiosity. He taught me to chase opportunities, explore the world and never be afraid of starting somewhere new or doing things on my own. He believed life was meant to be lived fully, and he passed that belief on to me.

After he died, I kept moving. I kept travelling. Sometimes for months. Sometimes for a year. Every time I boarded a plane, there was a strange feeling sitting in my chest: excitement about seeing somewhere new, mixed with an overwhelming sadness that felt almost impossible to explain.

It was as though every departure meant leaving him behind all over again. Grief quietly attaches itself to departures.

‘Resilience became something I practised’

Eventually, I swapped airports for graduate programmes. The movement did not stop. Every six months to a year, there was another job. Another city. Another team. Another group of people to prove myself to. Another place to adapt to.

Resilience became something I practised, whether I wanted to or not.

Then I moved to Dublin.

For once, I was supposed to be settling somewhere for a year. I had a job, a flat and a life that was beginning to take shape. I thought perhaps this would be a year where I could stay still for a little while.

Moving between two realities

Then my mum was diagnosed with cancer.

Suddenly, home existed somewhere between Dublin and Edinburgh. Dublin was where my work was. My flat. My friends. The routines and life I was trying to build. Edinburgh was hospital appointments, treatment plans and time with my mum.

The calls home changed too. Catch-ups about work, friends and ordinary life slowly became conversations about chemotherapy. Medication. Side effects. Blood results. Calls with doctors. What the next appointment might bring.

Sometimes I was there for those conversations. Sometimes I was on FaceTime from Dublin, trying to understand how she was doing through a screen. I began to notice the changes between calls. The tiredness in her face. The difference in her voice. Then I would go back to Edinburgh and see those changes in person.

And eventually, I would have to leave again.

There was something particularly difficult about saying goodbye to my mum, getting on a plane and returning to work and normal life in Dublin while knowing that, back in Edinburgh, hers was becoming less and less normal.

Life kept asking me to move between two realities. In one, there were meetings, deadlines, dinners with friends and the beginnings of a life in Dublin. In the other, there were chemotherapy schedules, medications, doctors and an illness I could not fix.

I never quite knew where I was supposed to be. When I was in Dublin, part of me felt I should be in Edinburgh. When I was in Edinburgh, I knew eventually I had to return to the job and life I had built in Dublin.

A changing relationship with home

Perhaps that was another way grief changed my relationship with home. Home stopped being one place I returned to. It became the distance between the life I was trying to live and the people I was terrified of losing.

Then came London. I genuinely believed London would be my place for a while. Not forever.

Just long enough to breathe. Long enough to stop introducing myself. Long enough to buy furniture without wondering whether I would have to sell it again. Long enough to build routines that felt permanent.

Instead, here I am. Packing again.

Moving house for the seventh time in three and a half years. Changing jobs for the fifth time. Feeling heavier than I ever remember feeling.

‘I still love discovering somewhere new’

The strange thing is that moving has always been part of my story. I grew up as a third culture kid. Norway. Australia. Edinburgh. Different schools. Different friends. Different accents. Different versions of home.

For much of my life, movement was not unusual. It was simply what we did. I still love discovering somewhere new. Meeting people. Experiencing different cultures. Saying yes to opportunities.

But somewhere along the way, that desire changed.

For now, I do not want endless movement anymore. Lately, I have realised that I am exhausted by starting over. I have become very good at adapting. Very good at rebuilding. Very good at finding my feet.

But being capable does not mean it is not tiring.

Tired of grieving places

I am tired of grieving places. Tired of grieving routines. Tired of saying goodbye before I have fully settled. Tired of wondering when I will finally get to exhale.

I think what I have been searching for is what I can only describe as a stable adventure.

A life where I can still explore the world but know exactly where home is. A home that does not feel temporary. Friendships that last longer than a lease agreement. A community where I do not always have to be the new person. Somewhere I can leave my favourite mug in the cupboard without wondering when I will have to wrap it in newspaper again.

Grief changes your relationship with home because home stops being only a place.

It becomes a feeling. A person. A version of safety that suddenly disappears.

‘Every move has become something I piece together myself’

Every move reminds me that my dad is not here to help carry the boxes. He is not here to ask whether I have remembered to label them properly, laugh at how much I have accumulated again, or drive a van across the country because that is simply what parents do when their children need them.

Instead, every move has become something I piece together myself. Hiring strangers with vans. Leaning on generous friends who offer to carry boxes or build furniture. Trying not to feel guilty for asking for help. Standing in an empty room at the end of the day, knowing that this time too, I packed up an entire life without him.

Sometimes grief looks like standing within four empty walls, surrounded by unopened boxes, realising there is nobody left to call.

There is something strangely lonely about unpacking your life by yourself. You unfold photographs from places you have loved. You find tickets from adventures that now belong to another chapter. You wrap and unwrap the same mug that has somehow survived every move, wondering whether this cupboard will finally become its permanent home.

You are not just unpacking belongings. You are unpacking pieces of your life. And when you are grieving, every object seems to carry a little more weight than it used to.

Packing and moving are never only logistics.

They are memory. They are loss. They are beginning again without the person who taught me that beginning again could be exciting.

‘A place where I can establish roots’

The man who taught me to be brave enough to leave home is now the person whose absence makes every new home a little harder to build.

So I hope I find my stable adventure: a place where I can establish roots.

Not roots that stop me from exploring, but roots that make every adventure feel safe because I know exactly where I am coming back to.

Victoria Neill

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