Day 172: Twenty-two days later…

I found myself at home tonight,  thinking about the new stuff that been happening over the past 3 weeks. It’s all been quite a blur.

The day after the departure of the Person Formerly Known As Boss, the Husbandit and I moved apartments.  About six months ago he had gotten a job in the same neighborhood in which I work, which was located on the opposite side of the city from which we were living.  While we loved our old neighborhood, we found that the hour commute killed our social lives.  After seething at the creative driving choices of our fellow commuters during rush hour, both of us arrived home exhausted and never took advantage of the cool stuff in our neighborhood.  We  decided to move nearer to work in order to make more time for sleep and fun.

Unfortunately, this involved packing all the things.  For us, that meant about one thousand books, fifty pounds of clothes, sheets and curtains, twenty pairs of shoes, fifteen board games, five beloved but awkward and heavy pieces of furniture, two rolls of duct tape and a seemingly infinite number of hairpins that breed under the couch and behind my desk.  The first few boxes were neatly packed.  We lovingly wrapped things in tissue paper, fit them together like Tetras blocks and wrote long informative labels on the boxes with Sharpies.

This did not last.  The night before we moved, I found myself  angrily throwing bedclothes and kitchen appliances into boxes and writing question marks with a broken crayon.  Thank God we don’t have a cat because it probably would have ended up in a box with the Husbandit’s  middle school yearbooks and a stapler.

Somehow we managed to get moved.  By “somehow” I mean with the help of some sinewy professionals who moved the heavy furniture and our incredibly generous (but less sinewy) friends who carried the endless book boxes.

We’re now almost settled in and even though moving to a new apartment sucked and was badly timed, it has definitely improved the quality of our lives.  I love that my days starts with a half-awake stroll rather than gripping the steering wheel and keeping an eye out for swerving cars and suicidal squirrels.  I love that the move pushed us to leave some stuff behind.   This move was a closure to a chapter in our lives;  the last apartment was set up for our previous jobs and had been more of a move away from something than to something.  I got rid of my desk, which I had used for my previous job, and set up a new writing space for myself that reflects more of how I actually write (sitting in a comfy chair, drinking tea, with books and paper spread around me) rather than how I think I should write (sitting at a grown-up desk in a straight-backed chair).

Moving always makes me feel that my life is on hold.  I can’t find anything, so I can’t do anything, and all of my time is absorbed by packing then unpacking.  It also feels unreal.  The day before I move I never really believe it is going to happen.  It’s like flying, I understand intellectually that in 3 hours I’ll be in California but my mind can’t comprehend that leap in geography so I just feel I like I’m playing pretend until I get off the plane.  While I don’t mind the liminality of travelling, I hate it when moving.

However, now that I’m almost through it, I like being in the discovery stage of our new neighborhood, of not really being part of the neighborhood yet.   I’ve been trying to take different routes to work and we tried new restaurants as we unpacked our kitchen. I’m learning the names of the people in our building, and the weird little landmarks around us.

A couple of new things I’ve discovered:

1)  Baths are awesome!  We have a clean, usable bathtub in our new place.  I haven’t had a bathtub since moving out of my natal home.  Now I want tub toys.

2)  There is a gelato place one block from my apartment.  It also serves brownies the size of my head.  And there is tea.  And there are lots of tables.  I think I’m in love.

3)  When I walk to work I resent work less.  I’ve had to take on some more responsibilities as they search for a replacement for my boss, but having a twenty minute walking commute helps me manage stress and makes staying late easier.

4)  There is a two year old that lives above us.  She likes to run a lot.  I don’t mid because her feet are tiny so it just sound like leprechauns are having a kegger upstairs.

5)  There is a sex shop near us that thinks that a Mother’s Day sale is a good marketing tool.  I’m not offended, just perplexed.  Especially that the fact that they chose a standard Mother’s Day banner sign with ducks and flowers.  Right next to a print out stating that ‘Stiff Nights” was now available.  I’m going to keep an eye on this store to find out if they will continue this plan throughout other holidays, like Arbor Day and Memorial Day weekend.

6)  Our laundry room is less scary than our last one.  This means I am more like to be wearing clean clothes.

7)  I biked 17 miles from our old apartment to our new apartment in order to move our bikes!  That’s the farthest i’ve ever biked in the past 5 years  and now I know the bike path from one side of the city to the other.

Between moving and stepping in after ex-Boss left, I’m been doing so many new things, it has all mooshed together in a tired haze.  Not all of them have been enjoyable, like moving boxes up to a second floor walk-up, or learning how to do a schedule, but I enjoy that things feel dynamic right now.  There’s a lot of things I want to change in my life right now, so it feels  like a positioning myself at the bat.