By Rachel Sauer
Special to The Daily Sentinel
So, what I didn’t do this week is help my friend move. I promise it wasn’t for lack of trying.
She: We rented one of those PODS and it’s being delivered Thursday.
Me: Ah, yes. I hear those jobbies are super handy. Anyway, let me come help unload it.
She: Oh, thanks, but I think we’re set. (Husband’s) nephew is going to help.
Me: But can we ever really trust a nephew? I’m very strong and good with boxes. I insist.
She: Aw, that’s OK, but thank you!
I didn’t push the issue further because a) no means no; b) it’s not like hefting weirdly shaped stuff is my idea of a zany Thursday night – “Hey, gang, let’s go schlep a living room set and possibly pull something!”; and c) I get it.
Having moved a fair amount in my day, I keenly understand the picked-scab vulnerability of that time in life. It is not a time for reasonable, or even lucid, thinking. Nor is necessarily a time to allow even those who love us to see our rawest, realest selves. By which I mean our slobby, feral wolf-child selves.
So, yeah, moving is the worst.
There’s a lot of psychological data that say moving is among the most stressful of human experiences, right up there with losing a loved one and getting divorced. If I had to guess, I’d say moving has led to more than a few suspicious deaths and a lot of divorces.
For starters, change is hard. Even if it’s just a move in town – which actually might be worse than a move across the country – it means leaving a place where experiences were had and memories were formed and life was lived. Those things are huge components of who we are. Leaving the place where they happened is a loss, especially when the future seems to hold nothing but unknowns.
Plus, moving has always forced me to confront my inadequacies as a housekeeper, my foolishness with money and the speed with which my good intentions crash through the guard rail and plunge into the river.
Every move of my adult life has basically followed this schedule:
One month before move day: I am going to come home from work every night this week and pack five boxes! That’s not an overwhelming amount, I can maintain a reasonable pace and be on schedule for move day. Hooray!
Every evening for the next two weeks: I am tired and probably I should re-read the Harry Potter series to marshal my strength for the upcoming move.
Two weeks before move day: I mean, I still have two weeks to box all this stuff up! Easy peasy! I will start by scrupulously, painstakingly going through every box I didn’t bother unpacking after the previous move and examining every item inside with the scientific rigor of a forensic pathologist studying clothing fibers.
Then, I will establish a Goodwill bag and half-fill it with a meager dribble of items like a Sony Discman ca. 1998 that still works! Probably! I’d know for sure if I could find some batteries, but I can’t.
One week before move day: Who has two thumbs and isn’t panicking? This gal! I am going to methodically and rationally put items into boxes by size, shape and the room of the house in which they belong. I didn’t play all that Tetris in high school for nothing!
Two days before move day: I AM GOING TO THROW CRAP INTO WHATEVER BOX IS NEARBY, SEAL IT SHUT WITH 237 LAYERS OF PACKING TAPE AND FIGURE IT OUT ON THE OTHER END!!! WHERE I WILL DESPISE MYSELF AND ALL MY POOR CHOICES!! WHO EVEN CARES, LIFE HAS NO MEANING!!
One day before move day: Woe. I will never be happy again.
Moving day: (Stiff-arming stuff into Hefty bags, snow shovel-style)
Everything is terrible about this whole process. And to have friends help me on either end is to allow them to see the mystifying amount of stuff I own, its quality or lack thereof, the shameful fruits of my tendency toward procrastination and the infrequency with which I mopped and dusted.
It’s a truly dismal time when I’m already feeling overwrought and exposed. And don’t even get me started on the cleaning that has to follow loading everything into the U-Haul or borrowed pick-ups. I might as well just get a hat embroidered with “I am gross.”
So yes, as much as I would not have judged my friend and truly would have been there to just haul boxes, I 100% understand the desire to have the fewest number of witnesses. That also helps when it’s time to hide the bodies.