THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, June 2, 1996 TAG: 9605310085
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E8 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY ANN G. SJOERDSMA
LENGTH: 73 lines
I THINK I've been moving for 40 days and 40 nights. The upheaval in my life has reached biblical proportions.
If only Moses would unpack the boxes . . .
For 40 days and 40 nights, I've been moving, packing, storing, trashing, disconnecting, cleaning, moving, packing and storing, and now that I've arrived at the terminal point, I know only one thing:
I'VE MADE A HORRIBLE MISTAKE.
Life has become unlivable. I can't even find a grocery store, and without milk, all this coffee is going to choke me. Solid food I'll worry about later. Send in the paramedics. And the clowns. ACK! What have I done?
Is there a pencil in the joint?
It's springtime and moves are in the air. My own came about unexpectedly - and about three months too soon, for my planning - when I received word that I had to vacate my then-current and immensely comfortable Outer Banks digs lickety-split. My home of two years, where there were no menacing boxes, was being re-claimed. I was ousted from Eden . . .
. . . and swallowed by a whale of a mess.
Where is that blankety-blank yellow blouse?
On the May day that Hampton Roads enjoyed a record high 97 degrees, I moved my valued possessions, all carefully boxed and marked according to contents, which I can't for the life of me locate now. The dribs-and-drabs carloads of breakables and must-have-until-the-last-minute items, such as the all-important TV (a link to real life) and VCR, were transported in the lovely Hampton Roads rain. A flat tire added to the pleasure.
Even my car knows I've made a horrible mistake.
Thus far, my nights have been sleepless, illuminated by a burning lamp post outside the bedroom window that I overlooked at lease time, or restless, consumed by endless doubts. Fight or flight? No contest. I'll take any ticket out of here. Dorothy's red slippers. I want to go home.
And my days? Well, I've found reasons to be elsewhere. I'm paying rent to have boxes housed!
Unless a move is eagerly anticipated and signals a bright new beginning, there are few transactions in life more disruptive. When people ask me how I am, I say ``discombobulated.'' And then I really get depressed. I'm seriously thinking of leaving the boxes stacked up in the living room - so they'll be ready for the next move - and living out of the kitchen.
Who wants to open a box marked ``miscellaneous,'' with about 10 items listed on it, none of which I seek?
I'm not even a pack rat. I've thrown away so many now-valuable baby-boomer collectibles, it's sick. (And, to add insult to injury, my bubble-blonde Barbie doll's head is split.)
``Stuff'' doesn't last long in my presence, if it is without function or sentimentality. To the dump, to the dump, it goes. With this move, I'm thinking of paring down even further. Drastically so. Who needs silverware, plates, bowls, pots and pans? Surely, places can be rented where all of these things are supplied and I can merely hang up my clothes. Furniture, too. And bulky computer equipment.
I'm thinking low maintenance. Pick up and go. FLEE.
I may even part with some of the books tucked away in 30 boxes, which are either in storage or on my living room floor. As all devoted readers know, books must be ripped from their owners' sides. It's a gut-spilling experience to give away a book, even one whose spine hasn't been cracked in 20 years. But I refuse to buy more bookcases. Or beg for more liquor-store boxes.
My friends say that I have to give this move, any move, six months. That's the requisite adjustment time. They say I shouldn't be making snap judgments. Or drafting escape plans. And I have to cease wandering about the new apartment, muttering to myself: ``Mistake, mistake, horrible mistake.''
But I'm not so sure.
I figure I'll give it another 40 days and 40 nights, and if the flood of discombobulation hasn't receded by then, I may have to pack it in. In what, I'm not sure, but I'll figure it out somehow.
In the meantime, would somebody please tell me where I can buy a quart of milk? MEMO: Ann G. Sjoerdsma is a lawyer and book editor for The
Virginian-Pilot. by CNB