Wednesday, September 2, 2015

Moving


Some days, it's juuuuust enough to keep your sanity. Days like today, when the humidex in Toronto reached thirty-eight degrees Celsius, and when M and I are packing up our apartment, and I'm wobbling up and down the stairs three hundred times a day for various reasons (everything from flirting with the LCBO clerks so they'll take pity on me and give me more boxes, to surreptitiously leaving various kitchenware goods on the sidewalk in hopes that Good People take our janky pots and pans, to just your ordinary run-of-the-mill laundry day), I started texting my mom in all caps, telling her how hot I was and how much moving sucks. Not just moving house—physically moving my body around was such a drag today. I'll tell you what.

The last few times I've moved, I've had only a room in a house. Sure, I've packed up a few kitchen things and a couch or two, and my wardrobe was probably bigger then than it is now, but this move is on a whole other level. I feel like my books must have been having sex in the night, birthing little baby books that I never read and just sort of stroke affectionately as I pass. Things have changed since my last move. I own actual dishes now! Like, roughly one gazillion wine glasses, and seven cutting boards (I love them all), and many bowls. We have tiny jars of mustard and honey. We have a milk crate full of cleaning supplies. Who bought this stuff? Was it me? Why? I must have been drunk.

I know I should be in Marie Kondo mod—picking each item up, asking myself if it makes me feel joy in my body, and if I don't, thanking it for its service—and to be fair, I tried that. For like an hour. And then I just started flinging stuff into boxes and hoping that when I unpacked, I would still be able to tolerate this stuff. Fingers crossed! I packed up thirty cassette tapes! I haven't had a tape player in years!

Moving is really hard. Moving in August is hard. Moving in August while pregnant is hard and a little dumb. M and I are both at Defcon 1, and I'm picking fights and he's taking the bait. Today we argued about whether or not he could change out of his soaking-wet, just-in-from-the-rain clothes before we scurried out to get even more boxes. This is the level we're at today. It's really not our best moment.

I keep trying to take the long view: this, too, shall pass. M's mantra this month has been "the mess is only temporary," and it is. We will pack, then move, and then unpack, all this stuff. Some of it will be perfectly at home in the new place; other stuff, I'll just look at and laugh. What could I be thinking, packing chipped mugs I don't like, dead plants, photos of people I no longer know? Away with all of it, seriously.

This move will be the first time M and I create a home together from scratch. It'll be the first time I leave the Annex, where I've lived for close to twelve years. It's a whole new landscape: new grocery stores, new transit stops, new topography. I am nervous, I am excited. I am ready to be there, for this step to be over. I am ready for September to really begin.