Ups and downs

recently, mostly peaks but a couple of heavy troughs. I honestly thought I'd breeze through this house move; my confidence in my mental strength was mostly justified, but eventually I found myself right at the bottom of my comfort zone after getting a stupidly-inflated quote for putting carpet down.

At this point we'd moved most of our stuff between houses but still had a final spick-and-span and key handover to do at the old place that evening. I was pushing someone to quote me a price for carpeting the flat and trying to pin someone else down for collection of a fridge. Neither person understood how stressful it was not knowing when these two important factors of the move were happening, and they don't know about my issues with uncertainty, so they weren't to know. But the fact that I didn't know what was happening with these two essential tasks was sincerely bugging me and I found it difficult to think about anything else.

It came to a head when I contacted both parties and pushed them for a response. Eventually I got a price back for the carpetting - £1,700! I cried. I sat at my desk and I felt like the world was crashing down around me. There was simply no way I could afford that, not even if I put everything else on hold in the meantime. It was more than double what I'd anticipated and it felt like a punch in the stomach when it came through.

I got a stroke of luck when a colleague saw how down I was - he suggested I talk to my boss, whose brother-in-law fits carpet, and get his to quote the job. He gave me a straight-up no-nonsense quote of £575 all-in and I almost ripped his arm off with my enthusiasm. Moments later, I got confirmation from the other person I was chasing and once everything had slotted into place I felt much better.

I've just realised how this is less about how the move has stressed me out, and more an example of how uncertainty makes me feel uneasy. A useful anecdote because it just reinforces the view that when things don't go to plan I revert to old, out-of-date behaviour.