Moving Day

Tomorrow is moving day, which means Adam and I will be spending most of our evening (after I get home from work, anyway) packing up the rest of our stuff.

I hate packing.

To be sure, I've been waiting for this day for the past year. I’m used to picking up and leaving; I’ve done it since I was little, and I hope to keep changing my location around for a long time to come.

But I don’t like the process of packing.

For one thing, you never realize how much STUFF you have until you try and put it all into cardboard boxes. I like to think of myself as a fairly non-materialistic person, so it’s always a nasty shock when I realize just how much crap I have accumulated over the years.

Books and clothes are especially problematic— I tend to accrue those two types of items in excess. I have too many books, both for the obvious reason that I just graduated from college, and for the less obvious reason that I have a sentimental attachment to certain novels and poetry anthologies. The reasons for my huge clothing stash, however, are more varied, and more complicated:

1.) I haven’t changed in size or shape much since I was twelve, so I haven’t really outgrown my clothes in quite a bit;

2.) I’m pretty small in general, so lots of people give me their old hand-me-downs when they (or their kids) have outgrown them;

3.) I hardly ever buy new clothes, but prefer to shop at Salvation Army or Goodwill, which means I have access to very cheap clothes in large quantities (i.e., instead of buying a new pair of jeans for $30, I’ll buy three pairs of used jeans for $10); and:

4.) I never ever ever throw clothes away, because it is possible that I might want them in the future (i.e., I would never throw away the hugely oversized tee-shirt I got for free from a church youth group mission trip when I was thirteen, because I could use it in the future as a paint smock, or as maternity sleepwear [waaaay in the future…], or I could cut it up for rags).

My packrat tendencies are probably a result of the Obsessive-Compulsive Personality Disorder; I’m told that it can manifest itself in hoarding, if not properly treated. I don’t hoard, exactly, but I keep things that I don’t need to keep: old birthday cards, copies of some of the better essays I’ve written, shoes that haven’t fit me since ninth grade, old copies of Cosmopolitan. And while every move does cause me to shed a few of these relics, I usually just tote most of them around from city to city, state to state, even country to country (I still have an old mini-purse that my host mom gave me in France; I don’t even like it, but I don’t want to throw it away!)

And it’s not just the stuff: I hate how your apartment or house or room looks so bare after everything’s gone. You’ve been living here for months; when you picture “home,” you see this place, comfy and lived-in, with your favorite slippers under the bed or your teakettle whistling on the stove. And now that everything is gone, it’s just a stupid bare space, and you once again don’t have a real image of “home” in your head.

I hate how everything smells when it comes out of storage— musty and kind of old, and you don’t know whether you should wash everything or just Fabreeze it to death. I hate how you have to pack dissonant items together in one box or bag— like, in order to save space, how you have to put the towels with the clothes, or the dishes with the silverware, or books alongside knickknacks. I hate how you always try to pack so strategically— write the contents on the side of the box, wrap breakable things in newspaper, pack the important stuff last so you’ll have it first when you get to your new place— and then you always end up having to unpack certain things and then repack them again in a different way.

Like I said, I hate packing.

But I keep reminding myself of all the stuff I love about moving: opening the door for the first time in your new home, learning all the ins and outs of the neighborhood, finding new places to eat, to take walks, or just to hang out. I love unpacking each item, placing it carefully where it belongs, and enjoying the neatness and organization of a newly occupied home (a neatness which, by the way, is ephemeral, and only lasts a few days at the most).

So even though I hate packing, I’m excited about this move. I can’t wait to find a job, to meet some new friends, to catch up with old friends (no matter where we move, I’ll finally be near to some of my friends from college!), and to see my husband in a place where he is appreciated and respected (I’M LOOKING AT YOU, YSU).

Really, even though this whole time is really stressful, it’s also kind of an adventure. And I love adventure!

What do you love/hate about moving?