On Picking Up Your Entire Life

If you’ve read any of my posts for the past, almost, two years you’ve probably seen me rant about my apartment. It’s small, it’s falling apart, and it’s literally less than twenty yards from the 101 freeway! The breakers would trip if we tried to use the toaster and the kettle at the same time. The interior would be 95 degrees at 9pm during the summer. The management company threatened to sue us when we got carbon monoxide poisoning from the broken heater (allegedly). Needless to say, it wasn’t the platonic ideal of an apartment. But still, it was cheap, in the neighborhood we love, and all of our stuff was there…so we lived there for two and a half years. Ladies and gentlemen…we finally did it. I’m currently sitting in a new apartment and it is GLORIOUS. This post, however, isn’t about the new place. This post is about the hellish process of picking up every single thing you own and moving it somewhere else.

Getting a new place rules. Moving sucks the moon right out of the sky. It starts days if not weeks before judgment day (aka moving day). You take a look around your current place and you think to yourself…Jesus Christ, when did I get all this junk? Then you start going through all the junk and all of a sudden, you’re finding things you used to love, books you meant to read, journals from high school… then you look at the clock and it’s been two days and you haven’t done any packing.

You spend the next few days furiously packing because even though you said, “we have plenty of time, this’ll be an easy move.” That was a lie and it is NEVER an “easy move”. The boxes pile up and so does your anxiety as it becomes harder and harder to move around your home and more and more impossible to do things like clean your bathroom, do your laundry, or cook a meal because EVERYTHING is in boxes.

Finally, judgment day is upon you and you feel your long national nightmare may be ending. Just kidding! Prepare for the longest day of your life. Hopefully, you have wonderful friends who are strong and capable and beautiful like my friends because otherwise, you’re screwed. Hopefully, you feel comfortable driving a big-ass moving van down busy streets and into tight parking spots and driveways, otherwise, you’re screwed. Hopefully, you LOVE picking up a million boxes, carrying them up and down a million stairs, and then eating pizza on the floor surrounded by a million boxes because, baby, that’s MOVING!

Oh man, moving is miserable, but the payoff, that sweet sweet moment when the old place is empty, the new place is full of boxes but the furniture is in and all that’s left is finding new homes for all of the junk you just couldn’t bring yourself to throw out. Your back feels like a smushed slinky, your knees are cracking and creaking like a mouth full of pop rocks, and your feet feel like you’ve run a marathon in loafers… but you did it, and you only got a little bit crabby with everyone and only broke like three things.

How about you? Any moving horror stories?