Grave Considerations: Moving, Part Five

We are finished moving.



Saturday, in five hours and three vehicles, with the help of our wonderful friends and family, my wife and cat and I moved to our new apartment, bringing everything we owned except a half full carton of eggs. We threw out our old bed, and donated some furniture, which was also picked up during that five hour span of time. What a busy day. No wonder I'm still exhausted now. Even my knuckles are sore.

Sunday was spent establishing our kitchen and restocking our book shelves, and we are currently left with the only major things to unpack being our clothes and collections. You know, the fun stuff. Of course, our Playstation and television were hooked up right away, and our internet was activated yesterday, and we've already played video games and watched YouTube videos and a few episodes of Yu Yu Hakusho while convalescing on the couch, so things are good. Staggered Spring Breaks mean we don't have work this morning and I have classes in the evening, and then we both go back to work tomorrow, and man, another slow morning is really feeling good right now.

Our new place is a very spacious two bedroom apartment with a living AND dining room, so right now, as we're emptying and disposing of boxes and rooms are starting to take shape, we are starting to get a sense of things. But the most important thing is that we are done.

In the next few weeks there will be more internal work done, as we set up figures and all of that fun stuff. Some decisions made on boxes and things during the packing phase can now be carried out in the unpacking phase, and that may start as early as five minutes from now, or it may start tomorrow evening. Who knows at 7.50am? There are a few boxes I need to push out of the way in the room we've deemed The Office before I can feel good about opening toys: I don't want my wife to think I'm being irresponsible or lazy because I'm opening figures, despite all the work I've already done.

But, we are here, in our new home. Our cat is jumpy at every new sound he hears, and seems like he's enjoying walking around in so much new space, treating the mountains of boxes like a maze. A new place always takes a few days to settle in to, in terms of it feeling like you live there and that it is your home, but I have to say this: I am a sentimental and emotional man. I took one last walk through our old apartment before we left it on Saturday. And I saw empty rooms where the last five plus years of our lives were spent, and I got a little choked up. Before I walked out the last time, I said "I hope you're as good a home to someone else as you were to us," and when I got back outside I shed a tear. After our final trip to the new place to empty vehicles, we ordered food for everyone, and the first time I sat down in my new home was to eat pizza and wings with our friends and family. We ate and drank and laughed. Our cat rubbed up against everyone. And I knew that we were home, and the new place was already filling up with love and happiness.

I hope it stays this way forever.