Beginning to move

So I’ve begun to clear my apartment out in quite some earnest. I’m way ahead of schedule (my lease ends in this apartment on this coming 31st of March) but I reckon there’s hardly such a thing as too early early when it comes to moving: if I’m prepared for the end, then I won’t be rushing around stressed.

I’m beginning by emptying out drawers and cabinets and clustering their contents into piles. It’s amazing how much stuff gets crammed away and forgotten about. The hardest part of moving, for me, is deciding what to keep and what to get rid of, and if it’s gotten rid of, where it goes. This hardly depends on the size of the thing in question, so the many tiny things in drawers are, in some sense, more to deal with than the few big pieces of furniture.

I’m surrounded, as I write this, by piles of cables, lanyards, ties, tools, cards, incense, and so on. I have some homes for some of it (the tools will be picked up and over by a friend who organizes a crafting circle, there’s a bag for electronics recycling, …), but a lot of it is still to be dealt with.

I began with my clothes this morning; my goal is to pack into a backpack that I can carry with me, getting rid of almost everything else. I was lying on my bed exhausted from the choices (starting early this morning!), staring at the coats in the closet, when it occurred to me that what I’m doing is like cleaning up after someone who’s died. It was the thought of bringing my dress clothes to a consignment shop that got me thinking of it: that’s what my step-dad’s sister helped us do with my mom’s clothes.

Maybe it’s because the last time I moved was immediately after my mother died that I’m feeling this way: that was an intense and short period of time (three weeks!) that will probably always be what I think of when I move. The last time I felt so organized, so on top of things, so capable of doing what I need to do, was then.

My step-father had no idea what the move would entail. That was done for him when he moved into the house, and he had no idea that all the furniture contained things to deal with. He and I were breaking down the household and separating it, some for me and some for him, and he had no idea how much stuff there was. He kept saying that we should go around the house with colored stickers to label what we wanted (extraordinarily tacky idea, by the way), but the visible furniture was only the start of it: what really needed to be sorted was the kitchen equipment, the dining room, the offices, the book shelves, the cabinets of mixed plates, serving ware, dishes, cups, spoons, bowls, foodstuffs (I still have vinegars, cooking oils, and sauces from my mother’s!), not to mention the contents of my room (old toys, books, blankets, bedding…).

So one day while he was out I emptied all the drawers of the kitchen on to the dining room table, laying out all the contents flee-market style on towels. When he came back, he told me I was being manic. To this day I ruminate over that. The temerity, the gall to tell me that I (I!) was being manic, when he (he!) was the one who sold the house immediately after my mother’s death and made us move out of it in three (three!) weeks. Where they had lived there eight years. Me. I was the one who was being manic. My god. He was in such denial about the whole thing that he couldn’t handle it. But worse, he really did have no idea what the move would entail: he imagined it would all be taken care of for him. In a real sense, it was.

So now I’m a little bit back in that mind-space, feeling that rush of exhilaration (maybe that does sound a little manic) of tearing things out and putting them in their place. When I was a kid I loved to go through my folks’ drawers of random old stuff, pulling all the things out and looking at them. This has that feeling, combined with the hygienic feeling of purging unused stuff. What a thrill! And that’s all added to the joy that I get of being able to move out of this city: the master’s is over, I’ve done my time, and I’m free to go.

I’m excited about moving. I’m happy about it. I’m glad it’s happening. I’ve made friends here, some of whom I may even stay in touch with and see again on occasion. I’m not sure when or why I’d come back to Chicago. A schoolmate is proposing to his girlfriend soon, and their wedding may be in the Chicago area. I may well come back to visit just for the sake of it: it’s a nice city to come to, with plenty of attractions. I’m glad I lived here, and I’m glad that I really gave it an honest try. I suppose I was always resistant to it: there’s the risk that I decided in advance that I wasn’t going to like it and so didn’t. But that’s not something that’s wrong or bad: I don’t have to like Chicago, no matter what the residents of Chicago have to say about that.

I’ll end with this thought: ultimately, I am the only arbiter of what’s best for me. That’s not to say that other people’s perspective on me isn’t important or helpful. Rather, I mean that I’m the only one who can decide what I want, and I’m the one who has to chose what’s right for me. For most of my life, my mother, or father, or step-father, or step-mother, or school, or peers, or God were there to tell me what I should do: as long as I pleased them, did what they said, I’d be alright. But that isn’t true any longer (if it ever was true): I’m the one who gets to say what I need and do it. What a relief.