I am getting serious about the packing. Here's how I know: I had the afternoon off. Did I go to the spa? Did I drink boat drinks on the deck? (By the way - according to the thermometer on the deck, it is currently 110 degrees out there. Welcome to summer in North Carolina.) Did I get a pint of Ben and Jerry's and curl up on the sofa to see what shenanigans are currently going on in Port Charles?
No.
I cleaned.
To be more specific, I cleaned the one area of my living space that I NEVER clean. I try to pretend it doesn't exist. I don't go there, I don't look there, and I certainly don't PUT things there, because I know that if I do, they're gone forever, never to be seen or heard from again. Yes, that's right ... I cleaned (represses a shudder) ... BENEATH MY BED.
I have SERIOUS issues with the space beneath the bed.
First: Was anyone else completely traumatized by the movie "Poltergeist"? The clown doll? Under the bed? I was ALREADY afraid of clowns, hello, and now I had to worry that there was one under my bed. Lurking in the darkness. Waiting for an unsuspecting me to hang my head over the edge and peer underneath so that it could unleash some sort of vile butchery upon my person.
Second: The older you get, the bigger the bed, am I right? Storing stuff under the twin bed of my childhood was questionable (see "first") but at least then I could REACH it. As I get older and the bed gets bigger, I've noticed that there's some sort of gravitational pull to the CENTER of the space underneath the bed, and that anything you might possibly need (the matching shoe, the book you accidentally kicked under there in your morning pre coffee fog, the emergency flashlight for when the power goes out) gets sucked RIGHT to that spot. Which, of course, you can't reach unless you're Yao Ming. (And even then, it might be iffy).
Third: Asthma. Allergies. Dust Bunnies. Enough said.
For years, I didn't HAVE a "space beneath the bed" because -- tricky crafty me -- I didn't have a bed. I sat a box spring and mattress directly on the floor and was all "Look at me, I'm so artsy and bohemian!" At some point in my twenties, though, I suddenly became a fan of things like: furniture. Chairs. Dishes. The trappings of adult life. Instead of living like a freewheeling hippie chick who could throw her matress in a truck at any moment and relocate, I wanted to have, you know, a home.
It happens.
So I got a real bed. It was second hand and kind of rickety. Then I fell in love and bought a house and got a better bed -- a really cool bed. And then I moved again and bought a monstrosity of a bed, a ridiculous bed, all made of wood and iron and awesome. I LOVE it.
But seriously, the space underneath it is like a cavern with a very very low hanging ceiling. I can't get under there. That does not stop my STUFF from getting under there, though; I have known for a while that there might be a, erm, situation under there, and at some point I would have to deal with it. Just put on my big girl pants and go to town.
Today was apparently the day. It went pretty well, to be honest. I put a flashlight or two at the edges so I could see under there, armed myself with a yardstick (for the "poke it over to the other side of the bed" method of trying to move things to where I could reach them) and a coat hanger (for the "hook it and drag it toward me" method of moving things where I could reach them) and a glass of wine (in case either of the other methods failed and I had to resort to the "try to get under the bed and reach it with my actual hands" method).
I learned a few things though. First, that I am really not a messy person. Everything was either in neat rows (and out of reach, so how they were so neatly lined up is a bit of a mystery) or in shoe boxes, or nicely stacked. It was a pleasant surprise, which was quickly followed by a less pleasant surprise.
Which was this: I have a flip flop problem.
To be fair, I don't think I BOUGHT all of those flip flops. I simply COULDN'T have. There's no way. I mean, yes, I wear flip flops pretty much 24/7 and I work from home so shoes are totally optional AND I live in North Carolina where you can kind of get away with the flippies all year round (and for those days you can't, I have SHEARLING flip flops which may be indicative of the severity of my problem), but ... we're talking many many pairs of flip flops.
There is only one logical conclusion: They're BREEDING under there. That's got to be it. So I'm conducting an experiment: I left two pairs under the bed, all by themselves. I'll check under there again in a few weeks.... and if there are more than two pairs of flip flops, it has to do with the Curse of the Space Under The Bed, and it's not MY shopping issue. Right?
Right.
Showing posts with label moving. Show all posts
Showing posts with label moving. Show all posts
Tuesday, June 22, 2010
Monday, June 14, 2010
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.
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.
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