Moving is Killing Me Slowly Until I Die from It

We have spent the last month moving.

Twelve years ago, when I was eight months pregnant, we found our Forever House. We moved in during a heavy snow with the help of a few friends and their pick-ups. It took an afternoon, I think. I can’t be sure, though, because I was eight months pregnant and hormonal. In my fuzzy, Vaseline-rimmed mind it took an afternoon so I can only suppose it was actually longer.

And I hated that house in the beginning. I missed our mid-town Tulsa cottage that we decorated just so. I hated the beige and light blue everything of the house: the carpet, the paint, the wallpaper, the trim.

And then, slowly, we made it our own and somewhere along the way, I fell in love with it. We painted the dining room purple and the living room green — and it made me smile. We painted circles on Chili Jr.’s wall and the Blue Angels on Max’s wall. We poked a bajillion tacks into those same walls to hang posters of puppies in flower pots, Mario Kart, and Eskimo Joe. We also installed a significant gourmet kitchen.

And we did those things because we loved that house and we thought we’d be there forever. I brought our babies home to that house. Rocked them to sleep in that house. Threw Halloween parties in that house.

Then, just for fun, we started looking around to see what houses were available in our market. And we found a house we thought we could love as much as we loved the one we lived in. So we bought it.

Then I looked around our old house and thought, “How can we move this?” and started hyperventilating. In fact, just thinking about it is making me hyperventilate right now and I know how this story turns out.

My husband is a bit of DIY-er. And, since we’d been moving our stuff together since 1993, he figured we could do it one more time. And, my friends, I am here to tell you that the amount of stuff you have in college is not the same as the amount of stuff you have after 16 years of marriage and two kids. In the 12 years we lived in that house, we accumulated stuff that could fill the state of Rhode Island (if Rhode Island was 2300 square feet and had a few walk-in closets).

The stress of moving ourselves — without the benefit of friends with trucks this time — has been great. And, although we have moved everything from the inside of the house to the new house, there are still many things on the outside of the house yet to move over. Like my Grandma Isephine’s lilac bush and her irises. And our huge hostas that Husband has been nursing for 12 years. And the lawn mower. This weekend we will finally empty out the garage via my final garage sale ever. Never again in my life will you hear me say I’m getting ready to hold a garage sale. And if you do, please kill me on sight. I’ll thank you later.

Moving is a process that has taken over a month and doesn’t seem to have an end in sight. I have more to tell you, but right now I have to go find a paper sack. The hyperventilation never ends, I tell you.

Tagged as: moving