Moving is annoying. When I moved into this apartment, I said that my next move would involve ME in a box. Then, life got so much better. Now, I'm packing to move out, and I am most decidedly and happily not one of the items in the boxes. Although tedious, packing is not the problem and helps me edit out stuff that I really have no need to keep, or for which I forgot the reason that I was keeping in the first place. I don't even mind -- much -- painting over my happy Mimosa yellow or my soothing Frosted Pine walls, turning them into a color that is trying hard not to be a color, because this move is for so many fantastic reasons.
The thing that I find worst about moving is getting things put into the van and driving it to a new place and unloading the van. If I hired movers, some of this anxiety could be out of sight and out of mind. I haven't hired movers, however, because this is all coming out of my pocket, up front. Not one place that I have worked for has ever paid the cost of moving, no matter how far I had to move. This place will pay, but not until next year. Hiring movers is a hell of an investment up front when you need that cash for living over the next 12 months. Plus, I have a very small window in which to get my stuff from here to there. In my experience, movers will get your stuff to wherever you need to get it on their own damn time -- maybe next week, maybe in six months. All of which is to say that I have to do it cut rate, and cut rate is a pain.
Most of the major annoyances of this move have to do with the oddity of the circumstances. Yes, I'm leaving one apartment and one job in one city to begin work at another home with another job in another city. No big deal. Pack, move, unpack. Throw away these business cards and this institutional affiliation and get another set of cards with another affiliation. Change direct deposit from one payroll office to another. Change insurance and doctors, with minimal interruption in medication. People do it all of the time.
Except, I have this big, 9 month gap in there with no institutional affiliation, no payroll, no doctor, no official residence, really, as far as various agencies are concerned. I will be an ex-patriate in all sorts of odd ways that I hadn't anticipated.
Yet, I will not trade the next 9 months for anything at all. This is what goes through my head, "Dang it! This whole Emerald City thing is really inconvenient what with all of this packing and explaining and limbo for a year." Then, "Wait a minute. I'm going to Emerald City for a year. I'm going to effing EMERALD CITY for A YEAR! To WRITE!" Then, I do a big Happy Snoopy Dance and laugh at how snotty and bratty I sound for being annoyed at the little details because -- hey! -- I'm going to the EMERALD CITY for A YEAR!
Sometimes, life can be good. It's rather a shock, really.
Sunday, August 07, 2011
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3 comments:
It will be worth it in the end, you're right, and concentrating on that happy outcome has to make the undeniably annoying, tiresome and draining work of moving a bit more bearable.
But it's perfectly okay to whinge a bit about the move because we all understand how rotten moving is as a process!
I can't wait until you start posting from Emerald City!
Ha. congratulations on the great moves, and good luck dealing with the still-annoying moving.
I sympathize. Moving to Fellowship City for a year was a major pain in the ass. And there were the usual aggravations when I arrived. But it turned out to be the best year of my adult life to date.
Hooray for positive changes and new beginnings!
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