Moving is a terrible thing. Packing is a tedious, physical chore. And if that’s not physical enough, there’s the move part. This is why people don’t do it frequently, if they can help it. But thank goodness, thank the universe and thank Providence for movers. At 8:30 this morning, precisely when they said, the movers arrived.
The owner of the company is the former student of one of our colleagues. And that professor has hired this company twice for moves, and is about to hire him a third time. A good endorsement.
Four guys come in. Two of them former D-1 football players. All of them strong and young and confident. All of them, “Sir” and “Ma’am” and “May I put my water in your refrigerator?” and “May I use your restroom?” These guys were great.
They were taking our things out of our hands because, as they said over and over, this was their job. And that’s true, but you’d feel like a total heel if you didn’t help.
One of the guys loaded his pickup with the last bit of junk and trash for the nearby dumpster run and followed me there to help us get it out of the way. These guys were great, and they worked hard.
And so have we! I told you about the packing. Things hurt on me, and part of that is a direct result of this. Moving is a terrible thing.
But the worst, perhaps, was the last little bit. Truck is full. Movers are thanked individually and collectively and sincerely. Ibuprofen was offered. Tips were delivered. And then they left with our stuff to … wherever. The plan is we’ll see it again on Thursday.
Now, we have to finish cleaning, and then load the cars. And then take a shower. And then, somehow, keep loading the last of the things into the cars. Where do these things keep coming from? Will there be room in the car for me? Can I take another shower now, because this is ridiculous?
And so we got on the road, a bit later than we wanted, but just fine in the scheme of things. And we pointed east.
We’re going to New Jersey, which is a good thing. More on that later. You might think, as I did at first, that moving to New Jersey would mean I wouldn’t see views like this …
Or important farm equipment like this …
That’s a stereotype, and stereotypes aren’t always accurate. We’re going to South Jersey. We’re going to be in a beautiful, bucolic, pastoral, verdant region. We will be surrounded by farmland, with the Delaware River a short distance away, the beach a bit farther away, and plenty of wonderful new places to explore and learn about. It’s quiet and small and really quite something.
But I’m getting well ahead of myself. Tonight we are in Ohio, just north of Cincinnati. It seemed a good idea, I dunno, a few weeks ago before we realized just how much work we’d put in ourselves over the last five days, to break this trip up. So it’s a hotel tonight, and on the road again in the morning. Driving in packed cars that, in any other context, you might think of as troubling, with limited visibility that is possibly flirting with the legal limits in some of the jurisdictions we’re driving through.
The thing I learned this evening — while loading up my car, full of a “You want it to go, I’ll get it in here” bravado that was mostly sincere — is that there’s something sad about some of those last few things that you put into the car when you’re moving your entire life.
Oh, some things you need. And I stupidly put my suitcase in the middle of the back seat, so everything is on top of it. Some things are important or are sentimental, and they go in their places. Some things are practical. We needed the vacuum and cleaning supplies for the last run through of the house for the buyers (a nice young family of four, first time home owners). And then there’s whatever else you keep running across in your last half dozen walk throughs of every room. And some of that stuff, dear reader, is just pitiful.
But now, underway, in a hotel, with pizza topped with plans and dreams and contingencies, we are past the hardest, most hectic part of the move. We packed it all. It all got loaded. Everything is in motion. It is almost difficult to believe it all came together, considering where we were on Friday. The few hours of driving this evening was a welcome break. A full day’s worth of driving tomorrow … seems like a long day. After that, there’s just the new house, being reunited with our things, and getting settled.
Easy!
(He said, perhaps naively.)
