The Final Stretch

My life is officially in disarray....two measly weeks until the big move, and it's turning into a much greater undertaking than I had first assumed. I've never done a move like this without my mother, master of organization that she is....a whole three bedroom house. When Stacey and I moved into our current house, we did it in two parts, with me moving in first and Stacey moving in later, so the volume of stuff we were moving was divided in two parts, too. Since then, we've managed to accumulate another few vanloads of junk in bits and pieces....I had no idea we had so much *stuff* until it started going into boxes.

But last night, the first of the downstairs furniture came toppling to the ground. I took apart the dining room table to free up the dining room for stacking boxes. We already know that the move is going to be expensive...any money we can save, bringing boxes downstairs to save on time, we're going to do it. And soon enough, we'll be sealing up the truck and starting on the long haul down the 417 to Kanata.

Packing can be an emotional thing. There's something satisfying yet vaguely melancholy about sealing your stuff up in cardboard boxes. There's the feeling of accomplishment ("hey, I just put my entire first three year's worth of university textbooks in one box! Master packer, that's me!"), but also the feeling of loss ("what, I couldn't get the fourth year in there, too? Now I have to start a new box...") and the feeling of screaming pain ("Agggggghhh!! My back!"). I guess it's the idea that all your stuff can be reduced to a few sheets of wood and some nondescript brown cube boxes that makes it kind of melancholy. But all that gets washed away when you start fresh in the new place.

Tonight I'm probably going to take apart a desk and make a big dent into the stuff in the kitchen cupboards. Wish me luck.