IX. Intranquilo

Uneasy

The word “unanchored” comes to mind when I try for a one word description of my mood lately. Add “anxious”, and you’ve got a pretty good idea of the way we've both been feeling.

It makes sense. We’ve removed most signs around this household that have connected us--for years--to our whims, pleasures, and values. Gone, and either packed or given away, are the pictures and cards, fountain and plants, all the books, most artwork, meaningful rocks and pieces of wood. Gone even are a few mainstays of our modest and mismatched furniture suite.

I guess we could have waited another couple of weeks or so to start the sorting and packing, but once we'd made flight reservations--well, it was hard to hold back. We're both perfectionists, for one thing, and don't like to be rushed. Doing this work consciously also feels kind of like a mitzvah, and as my forward-thinking wife would say, "That's just the way we roll".

All packed, soon to be moved out of bed-

room into office staging area, there ready 

to be moved to a $69/month storage 

locker...Bye-bye nice stuff, stay safe.

Daily to-do lists brief us on how to complete the task of deconstructing our once comfortable home. Boxes and totes, that will soon occupy a storage locker in a facility somewhere behind a filling station or in an industrial park, are now propped in corners and at the base of walls throughout the apartment. Our rooms are beginning to echo when we walk, talk, or rustle in and through them. All this does not make for a settled feeling.

It’s not only shedding pounds of unneeded objects and useless sentimental fat. We feel—or it seems we should feel—lighter and more free for doing that. But it’s also about this long process of further deciding, among the objects we keep, those that we absolutely must take with us, and the vast majority of things that will go into storage. And then there is the final, seemingly irrevocable step of sealing each box, by which action we signify that all objects within will remain unseen and untouched for at least a year.

This coming week will see more sorting, and packing for either storing or shipping. Each iteration of this exercise leaves us leaner and more discriminating about what we’ll keep, but it’s also a reminder of what we’re leaving behind. Even our faithful, gracefully aging, little red Hyundai GT will soon be covered and parked behind a fence.

Work in progress:  big Home Depot box 

will be filled with linen, duvet, and 

favorite pillows and shipped to Mexico 

to the tune of $200/box...What to do 

with Scrabble game?

Add to all this is the Always In the Back of Our Minds knowledge that we have no specific idea exactly where we’ll live next, except in the general sense that it will be VERY unfamiliar, and a long way from the area we’ve called home for nearly half a century or more. As it gets closer to the date we embark (on what we swear will be--at least--an adventure, and one that we still choose), the uncertainty about where we will settle, and the fear that our choices will be limited to Not So Bad, and I Guess We Can Stand It For a Year complete this recipe for stress.

In the next post I'll write about how we are coping with this last aspect of our move, slated to begin in exactly one month.