Bring on the truck

I spent a lot of the end of this week on the phone--with insurers, with the contractor, with the power company, with the sewage and water board. I think I was choosing to ignore all the nitty-gritty details of moving, and now here they are, demanding to be taken care of.


In addition to having our services switched on and ironing out the paperwork from last week's theft, we also need to pack, of course, and I've gotten next to nothing done in that department.

In fact, I've found myself just really really TIRED this week. Since I've always had a bit of an iron deficiency, I surmised that I was feeling this way because I needed a burger and some greens. But after eating both, I still felt like sleeping for a week. And so I've been doing a lot of wasting time and sitting around (when I'm not on the phone, which I guess still qualifies as sitting around.)

I think part of what is making me feel so overwhelmed is that I've lived in my current place for some eight years, and I have collected a lot of stuff. I wouldn't say I'm a pack rat, but I like to keep mementos, pictures, papers, and other little items that bring back memories. All of this stuff has to be packed, and since I really need to sort through it, neither my mom nor Simon can help me get it done. It's all me.


So I've been slowly going through boxes and boxes of all I've collected during the past eight years--papers from graduate school, letters from old boyfriends--and as I've been doing it, I've been indulging in memories of my past. This has meant that it's been hard to get rid of even the tiniest of scraps of things: a bar napkin with some nonsensical scrawl on it, for instance.


I found one of these yesterday. It was a Camel Cigarettes cocktail napkin from the Funky Butt, and it read, "I'm afraid I may know everything already." I'd dated it January something-th, 2003. When I wrote it, I was bartending at the Funky Butt, and I was still with my then-boyfriend, Will. We were having a tough time, as Will had realized that New Orleans wasn't his city and he'd decided to move back to New York to pursue a career in film editing.

I remember talking about his leaving really openly. I was just CONVINCED that New Orleans could seduce him as it had me if only he'd let himself fall in love with this city. So I told my co-workers, my friends, my classmates--everyone--about his moving to New York, and I asked them all to help me convince him to stay. I knew it wouldn't work. But still.

Anyway, when I said "I'm afraid I may know everything already," (was it to a friend? a coworker? a patron?) I think I was talking about our impending breakup. It was an amicable enough one; we had both realized that Place was important to us--and we had fallen for two very different places. But our amicable breakup made me feel all of a sudden very adult. I really did have a sense that I'd found My Self, my Home. I knew Who I Was and Where I Wanted To Be, and knowing it made me feel both comforted and sad. Here I was. Here I would be. Here, here, here. What then?

What am I trying to say?


I guess I am trying to say that leaving this house is harder than I thought it would be. It feels like I'm closing an important chapter in my life. One might think that marriage would have felt like the "end" of this chapter, but my taurus-side has always made be feel very attached to things I can touch--a house, a cat, a letter from an ex-boyfriend, a ceramic frog I bought at a flea market in college that I stuck my hairbrushes in (this Simon recently threw away after it broke, and I fell into a melancholy for an entire day.) And so this chapter is one that's been housed not just in this city, but at this address.

I guess that's it: I've been going through my letters--through all of these things I've collected in this house-- and in doing so, I've realized just how different my life has become during the time I've lived at this address, and I can see just how different it will be, and I guess it has made me sad (even though the way I see it being in the future is happy enough, and all). I just wish I knew why I was sad, 'cause I don't want to be thinking about exes and deaths and lost kitties. I want to be thinking about landscaping and furniture and levee walks.

I mean, I really don't want to go back to relive the past eight years. They've been largely erratic ones, particularly those that were pre-Simon. But still... Oh, I don't know. Does everyone have this feeling when you're on the cusp of a big change? Do we all ache for a past that isn't even really ache-worthy? Or is it ache-worthy? Seriously, does everyone feel this way, or is it just me, because I feel like I have some big-time big-change blues.

I really am overjoyed to be moving (if you've been reading my blog, you know this). But I have never been good with transitions and in-between times. I get sad. I romanticize the past. I have make hyperbolic predictions about the future (He'll regret leaving me!) I indulge in self-pity and cheeseburgers. I put off packing. I Google ex-boyfriends. I blog.

What am I saying here?

I haven't a clue, y'all. I just know that I do not like this moving-crap. Not when someone else is doing it, and not when I am. I say bring on the truck and let's just get it done.

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Up next: a happy post filled with pictures of progress. Promise.