Halfway Gone

I am getting ready to move -- again.

When I moved to North Carolina in the summer of 2007, I lived in an apartment in Rochester, NH (which I liked to call Ra-cha-cha in an effort to make what seemed like an otherwise grim situation a little more peppy; also, Ra-cha-cha is fun to say). Then, as now, I began packing early because a) I'm completely OCD and b) I hate packing. HATE THE PACKING. This is one of the reasons that packing became "the throwing away of many many things I own omg am I a hoarder? is an intervention is order? aaaaagggggghhhhhhhhh" and I would frequently invent activities that would require leaving the apartment for extended periods of time, like going to get lunch with the Flink.

In Portland, Maine.

At the time, this made complete sense because obviously, if I had packed my kitchen items, I couldn't cook there, and clearly I needed to EAT, and sometimes a girl just wants a burrito -- and the best place to get a delicious burrito is Costa Vida (and their one New England location is in Portland) ... and if I was eating a burrito in Portland, I wouldn't have to be staring at the ridiculous amounts of THINGS that needed to find a home in a box so I could truck them to North Carolina.

At any rate, the slow but steady packing meant that my apartment was gradually taken over by stacks and stacks of boxes. I was surrounded by my stuff. Often, I would find Bean the cat staring at me from atop a large tower of plastic totes with a look of delighted puzzlement, as though to say "I appreciate that you've turned your entire living space into a glorious play area for me, Momma, but I have noticed that you now have nowhere to sit."

Flash forward three years, and once again, my things -- my STUFF -- is encroaching and making my living quarters less than comfy (and once again, it seems, I am destined to be without a place to sit) as I reverse the moving process and gather my things in boxes so I can truck them back UP the coast and return to New Hampshire.

It's interesting, though, the packing. The purging. Going through all of your stuff -- your actual, physical possessions and your emotional baggage. I hate it when people say "I was in a dark place" but my apartment in Rochester was LITERALLY a dark place -- very few windows, kind of cavelike -- and I was not, shall we say, the most emotionally healthy I've ever been. I would sit on the floor, in the dark, sifting through what was left after my marriage ended and before I moved to North Carolina. Old life, meet new life. I finally realized that this was my moment -- I could LITERALLY choose what I took with me as I moved on. It was amazing.

It was terrifying.

Every choice became a crazy metaphor. Every item I dumped, every item I packed, was suddenly so much more than, say, framed photo or an old mixing bowl. Everything had physical and emotional weight. It was, to put it mildly, somewhat ridiculous. I would stare at a box and wonder if I was making the right choices. I would often cry. The cat would hide. Then my phone would ring and the Flink would wonder if, perhaps, I would like to go to the beach.

(Oh how I owe that girl!)

This time? Not so much. I have less stuff. Fewer things and less baggage. Both make me happy; watching my possessions as they stack up around me is kind of fabulous because it's ALL new life. It's all moving foward.

It always was. I just couldn't see it.