Movin' On

Moving is such a strange experience. No matter how many times I go through it, it still sneaks up on me.

Once I find a new place and start making plans in my head for what's gonna go where and what color this room and that room is going to be, the excitement for a new era of my life can really take over. The first steps towards that next phase, however, almost always mean looking to the past. Tonight I pulled down some boxes that I don't think I've gone through in two or three moves and I found cards, letters, and pictures from old friends, old school papers, awards, and student IDs. I came across this one little album that had all high school pictures in it...Good God, we were tan! All of us! You'd think we attended school on a cruise ship in the tropics! I was quite fascinated by the many different ways I wore my hair in that 4-year blur. Why didn't anybody tell me to cut it? Beyond hair, it was funny how different I looked over all from year to year in that short span. I guess that could be indicative of me being a kid and not fully knowing who I was yet. Which is not to say that I know now, but a picture of me taken today might show me wearing the same clothes and hairstyle as I did four years ago, albeit with the occasional weight fluctuation.

It always makes me smile to go back and find all this old stuff, but why is nostalgia always tinged with the slightest sense of sadness too? That's what I'm saying, it's such an odd sense to feel both the anxiousness for your new life and the loyal affection for "the good ol' days" simultaneously. I guess overall it's a fun thing. I just wish I could have remembered where all this shit was those times when I felt lost, like I didn't really know who I was or where I was going. I could have been reminded so easily, at least about the former. The latter will always, to some degree, be a mystery...which is a good thing.

Then there's the simple physicality of moving, of course. The hand-broom of good friends sweeping up of your life from one place, the dustpan known as UHaul carrying it a matter of miles to be dumped in a new place, spread around again. There's an uncomfortable level of residence pergatory involved in this way too. As pictures are taken from the walls and boxes begin to stack around me, I can feel my sense of home dissolving around me. I don't care where you're moving to, until you actually get in there, there's nothing more lonely than coming home to an array of boxes, hearing your every step echo the emptiness around you.

On the flip side, when I finally do lock the door on the former abode one final time, set that last box down in the new place, and crack open a cool beer (or wine...or champagne...anything with alcohol really), man oh man is that sweet relief.

Twenty-four days to go!