One More Time

I imagine that everyone hates moving. I’m speaking of the physical process of packing up all your stuff, loading it and carting it over somewhere else. A new place to live, a new home to set up, speaks to the nature of new beginnings. It’s like celebrating New Year’s Eve, casting off the old for the promise of the new. And we don’t need any certainties, just the promise. It’s full of magic and hope.

That magic evaporated for me some years ago, the hope slain by the sheer number of times I’ve changed my address. To date, I have packed up everything I own and moved myself –

1 – May 2001, out of my parents’ house for the first time
2 – May 2002, my roommate and I found a better deal
3 – May 2003, my roommate and I found a 3^rd person, needed a bigger place
4 – October 2003, moved to my parents’ as I was getting ready to move to Houston and get married
5 – November 2003, took all my stuff to Houston, had a panic attack, broke up with the girl, and moved back all in the same day. Possibly the longest day of my life.
6 – December 2003, found my own place to live
7 – December 2004, back with my parents’ thinking I may go to grad school soon. Didn’t.
8 – October 2005, moved in with a girlfriend
9 – December 2005, her lease ended, we got a bigger place
10 – December 2006, we broke up, found another place; February, new girlfriend moved in
11 – May 2007, sublet a friends’ place for the summer
12 – August 2007, moved to Chicago (first move outside the immediate Dallas area)
13 – February 2008, girlfriend and I split, got my own place
14 – August 2009, my building shut down for renovations, forced to find another place

Which brings us to today. My next apartment (keep your fingers crossed, I’m only just today filling out the application) is one quarter mile from my current place. And yet despite this closeness I have to rent a truck, pack everything into boxes, load it, drive it, unload it, return the truck, set up the new place . . . .

And this is after a week’s search. I found an adequate place, but kept looking. I found a wonderful place, but before I could say yes, I got sniped by the agent’s daughter-in-law’s mother. So I went to fill out the application at the adequate place, but they’d forgotten to tell me they don’t allow students. Then a friend gave me a lead in her building, and when I opened my mouth to say “I’d like to fill out the application,” I remembered to say, “Do you allow a cat?” They don’t.

Yesterday I saw, and decided I liked well enough, a new place. It’s big and it’s sunny. It’s on the top (3^rd) floor on the corner facing south and east. I’ll have a dining room for the first time, and I’m not sure if I’ll ever use it except that for some reason the closet is in there instead of the bedroom. But then my closet is currently off the entry way nearer to the kitchen, so I guess I’m kinda used to that.

And I promise to love, love, love this place as long as I get to keep it until I can afford to pay somebody else to pack and move my stuff for me. But if it doesn’t work that way, and it probably won’t, I’ll just do what I always do. Shout at something, punch the wall, and grab some classifieds.