Dose of Happy: The Simple Life
This post was previously written on Mommy Wants Vodka, October 2012.
Moving is not my forte. Well, I suppose that moving is NO ONE’s forte, but there are people who move for a living, so perhaps they enjoy their job. I can’t be sure. So I’ll go with “most people hate to move.” I, myself, as previously stated, am one of those people.
It’s not the packing or unpacking, it’s the goodbyes that go along with it. While moving from a house to an apartment wasn’t quite the same sort of job that required actual movers or anything, it was still hard to say goodbye to the home I’d been lovingly restoring for years. I never expected to leave.
I’d begun moving on Wednesday, the day after the Comcast debacle began, which, I’m beginning to doubt that Comcast actually DOES care, or they wouldn’t have made me waste approximately two days to get Internet, but that, my wonderful Pranksters, is neither here nor there. (but it does make an excellent story for another day)
Box after box, I loaded into the van, pretending to be an overly large ant simply bringing offerings to the queen. It helps if I can visualize something like that or I get annoyed at the bruises that now make it appear as though I’ve been thoroughly beaten with whips and chains or boxes I happened to fill just this side of too heavy.
Three trips later, we were nearly done transporting boxes from this place to my new home, all over but the furniture and a couple of boxes that could only be packed at the last minute because they contained items like, “Marshmallow Fluff” and “Socks.” I mean, a day without socks is a day not worth living, and I wasn’t stupid enough to wear flimsy flippity-flops to move in, although that does seem to be something I’d do. Four inch heals? Sure! Let’s go run a marathon! Imma beat you motherfuckers! Just as soon as I fix this broken heel and nurse the 27 blisters on my feet that I got already. Wait, it’s ONLY been two minutes? That’s bullshit.
It was weird, seeing my life packed up like that. I’d always thought that I had more stuff, but it turns out that my ritual purging had truly paid off. And not just because I’d already managed to dump my shit at the scary Salvation Army donations center, but because my life in boxes? Turns out, that well before this debacle began, I’d purged just the right amount of stuff to fit into my one-bedroom apartment. In fact, the only things I really needed to make my house a home were pieces of (cheap) furniture.
Target, you are my BFF forever and ever and ever. Except for the Pranksters who are my family.
Saturday, I brought my Muppet girlchild with me to the U-haul place nearby to pick up one of those truck thingies and managed to fill it – in one trip – with the furniture I could call my own, which means that I’ve been able to actually sit somewhere that is not the floor while I sort through my crap.
Slowly, I’ve been unpacking, cleaning, and placing things in my very own space. Because the space is smaller than the home I once lived in, it’s been much easier to utilize the space that I do have, paring down the items I own further, and making my apartment my home.
While leaving my home of 7 years has been incredibly hard, for the first time in my life, everything seems simpler.
More put together.
Calmer. More organized.
And happier.
Much, much happier.