VASICEK: Is the fear of moving genetic?

By ED VASICEK
Tribune columnist

January 13, 2008 06:11 pm

— My wife and I enjoy ballroom dancing, but she only allows me two turns per Swing dance (I can get by with more if we are dancing Cha Cha or Rumba). Because the pace of Swing dancing is typically fast, she gets dizzy if she makes too many rapid turns.
My life is sometimes like that Swing dance: The pace can get so grueling that I end up with psychological vertigo.
Part of my recent dizziness came from helping a family member move to a different state. A number of folks helped out (and one friend even drove the truck for us). Despite the help, the experience stirred up my fear of moving.
They have names for all sorts of fears. For example, athazagoraphobia is the fear of being forgotten, kakorrhaphiophobia is the fear of failure while metathesiophobia is the fear of change. There is even a word called “pentheraphobia,” the fear of ones mother-in-law (must be a joke there somewhere). But what about the fear of moving? Well, based on Greek roots, I have created the word, “metairophobia.”
The truth is not that I am not actually afraid of moving (though I am edgy about driving a moving truck), but I simply despise it. I have come to theorize that it might be genetic. I set my case before you.
When my mom (youngest in the family) was 13 years old, back in 1938, she and her family moved into a house in suburban Chicago. Her dad died, and eventually her siblings all married.
Back in those days, the youngest daughter was expected to care for her widowed mother. So when my dad married my mom in 1951, my dad simply moved in. My sister and I grew up in that house. My mom died in 1982 and my dad in 1989 while still residing at the same location. They never moved. Incidentally, they never owned the house, but rented the first floor “flat” the entire time!
My dad’s parents lived in the same apartment from 1932 until my grandmother moved into a nursing home in 1983.
My wife’s family was not into moving either. Back in 1925 or so, my mother-in-law’s dad had a house built in another suburb just a few miles from where I was raised. My mother-in-law, Ann, was carried in that house as a baby, only a few months old. She too was the youngest in her family.
When my wife’s parents were married (I think 1950 or so), they lived in an apartment in yet another nearby suburb for one year. Then Ann’s mom died. As the youngest, she was expected to care for her dad, so the newlywed couple relocated back into that house. All right, I’ll concede that this was one small move, but how much does a couple accumulate in only one year? But get this: Ann finally sold that house about four years ago, when, at the age of 79, she decided to move into a condo!
When I moved into an apartment from a Bible college dormitory back in 1979, I am ruling that a couple of carloads does not count as a real move (this is my column, so I make up the rules!). When Marylu and I wed in 1980, we were forced to rent the smallest U-Haul available to bring in her things, still not really a move.
When we relocated to Kokomo in 1983, that was our only real move, and what a move it was: Marylu’s concrete kick wheel and pottery kiln (which had been in her parents basement), my collection of over 1,000 books – it was a rough, grueling move. Twenty-four years later, I am still traumatized.
Those of you who have moved time and time again and think nothing of it – you have something I lack. Guess I’ll have to stay put for a while. I suffer from “metairophobia.” And I think it’s in my genes.
Ed Vasicek is pastor of Highland Park Church and a weekly contributor to the Kokomo Tribune.