Things are calming down

So this weekend we finished our move-out from the apartment. It took nearly 7 hours to finish everything up; multiple carloads, unloading and repacking boxes/crates, whatever. It was a real pain ultimately; my spouse said afterwards, “We’re hiring movers next time we do this.” I’m inclined to concur with that as I was absolutely wiped out that evening and the next day. I was supposed to play D&D on Sunday but I’m really kinda glad we had to reschedule to next Sunday. Worked out OK for me.

I think I just have some thoughts on this whole process and wanted to get them down. I am grateful that we had time between closing and when our lease was up, so we didn’t have to break our lease, and just paid an extra month of rent (thankfully the closing costs covered us until 01 Nov, when we had our first mortgage payment, phew). So that worked out great. I think I mentioned in my last post that my mom came out to see us, mainly to help us move, but also since we hadn’t seen her in quite a while. So we moved a ton of stuff one weekend when she was here for a few days (furniture, bed, &c.), and that took care of a lot of it. But remaining were the small, weird, loose pieces, the stuff we could take in carloads. I really didn’t think it would take that long, or that many car trips to move the rest of it over, but I was unfortunately wrong.

My spouse went out of town to visit family in Florida in mid-October, and while I moved a few things over while they were gone, I didn’t do nearly enough. The week after, we needed to make more of a push to get things done. On top of working 40hrs a week, and generally doing at least 10hrs of Latin work, it’s hard to find time for moving things, you know? So we moved things piecemeal whenever we had the energy for it, but unfortunately waited until the last minute, really, to finish all of it up.

On Saturday, we got up early, did some errands (hardware stuff at Lowe’s, &c.), got bagel breakfast sandwiches and a half-dozen bagels for the road, coffee, and eventually it was nearly noon when we started packing more in earnest at the apartment. We worked pretty much without a break, taking maybe 2 carloads back and forth, packing more and more stuff. And it was really exhausting. I just wanted to be done and I didn’t know how we could have so much stuff, fit so much into such a small apartment. I find myself now wanting to get rid of more and more stuff since I just don’t need it. More on that in a bit. We keep going, cleaning here and there, clearing rooms, and making piles of stuff to go out to the car and load it up. We cleaned the bedroom pretty quickly and vacuumed the best we could. I even tried to clean the Xya and Ajax noseprints off of the window, but it wasn’t ideal. Cleared and cleaned the bathroom. Kitchen was clear.

Pretty soon we still had a mishmash weird pile of remaining stuff and that was about it. We took as much as we could in my car, dropped it off and unloaded (the garage is pretty ridiculously full here), and went back for a final trip. We decided to take both cars in case we needed the extra space. At this point it was nearing 6pm and the sun was rapidly setting. I took bags and boxes and whatever to the garbage, throwing away whatever needed to go. I probably made 5 or 6 trips to the complex dumpster and was getting tired; it didn’t help that chub rub was quickly chafing my thighs. I should’ve worn comfier pants I guess. We kept loading both cars (mostly mine), and needed every bit of space. I shoehorned things into the car however possible, and just made it work. I did not want to take another trip, I wanted to get it done.

The office person at the complex, who happened to live upstairs from us too, called me sometime during the day and had asked me when we planned to drop off the keys (really just to plan her day I think). I said we’d drop them off as soon as we could, and she said we could always just leave the keys in the apartment and email when we were done. I had a feeling we’d need that option, and of course we did. By the time we got everything loaded, removed keys from our keyrings and put them on the apartment keyring, and were ready to take off, it was nearly 7pm, and pretty much full dark. My spouse took off for the house, and I followed shortly after, making sure to leave the keys in the apartment, send my email, and I also took a photo of the keys just in case and attached it to the email.

Once we were both home, we unloaded the cars as quickly and efficiently as we could, then went inside, locked up, and collapsed on the couch. We were both absolutely exhausted and of course ordered pizza since neither of us wanted to cook. That was a relief and I felt better. Sunday was fairly calm but we did a number of errands still, and I had a lot of Latin to work on after that too.

I don’t know why I’m going into Xanga-esque detail about all of this, but I guess I want to catalogue it for myself. (I say Xanga-esque since this sort of entry reminds me of the blog I used to write on Xanga back in 2004 or so, where I’d chronicle all the minutiae of my day; I try to avoid that these days). It’s just been a weird year, and a weird few months with the homebuying process and such, and I’m really glad it’s over and we can move on with our lives. Oh, and I found out today that we’re actually getting some of our deposit back from the complex; after 6 years there of nonstop wear and tear, I’m surprised we don’t owe anything. So that’s pretty cool.

As I mentioned earlier, I really want to get rid of stuff, and I think this is a perfect time for it. I’m finding books to get rid of and putting them in a to-be-donated box, and I’m totally OK getting rid of more stuff (movies, &c., or whatever). So I am trying to take a hard look at our possessions and really cut them down. I know we’ll have more room once we find places for things; we have a lot of storage here within the house, so the garage will eventually be more under control. But I’m just realizing that in many ways I have too much stuff, and I’d like to change that. So much of my life is digital and doesn’t need to take up space in my house, and that’s freeing. I’d rather have digital clutter that I can manage digitally than real-life clutter that I trip over. Much easier to deal with. But of course that doesn’t apply to everything, and I think we just need to be better and more intentional about organizing the stuff we do have, and removing the stuff we no longer need.

As much as it pains me, I think I need to keep getting rid of more books, even (especially?) those I’ve read and want to keep. So I’ll be making hard decisions and working on that all the time. I’d rather they have a better home and go to other readers. When I lived in Florida, I went to the Friends of the Library used book sale every year (sometimes twice per year?) and bought all sorts of books, many of which I have still not read. That was nerdy and fun and cool, but at the same time, I’ve amassed a ridiculous collection of books and need to pare it down. So I’m working on coming to terms with that. The worst part is that I’d really like my Classics collection to all fit on one bookshelf, but I think I may have to get rid of some of those too to make that a reality, and that’s extremely hard for me. I have a whole full box of Classics books that haven’t been put on the shelf yet, and the shelf is basically full, so that’s a bummer.

Not sure entirely where I’m going with all of this, but it’s a Tuesday night and I pulled a 10hr day and I’m exhausted, so this is what you get. Thanks for reading, friends, and I hope you’re all well. Tell me your house or apartment or whatever stories, I’d love to hear. (I thought about adding comments to the site, but all solutions seem to require enabling HTML, and that’s a no-go for me for security purposes). curate ut valeatis, amici amicaeque (p.s. I’d like to find a Latin way to use they/them pronouns that’s not neuter, because c’mon…)