Move Accomplished

Here are some facts: I spent most of a month packing. This included much sorting, taking to thrift shops and Goodwill and the local Montessori school for a spring street-fair-sale. I had a two day apartment sale and book give-away. I made enough money in that really not very successful sale to pay for the movers, but not the truck rental.

Three professional movers [really two plus one new guy who wasn't very enthusiastic] spend 5-1/2 hours loading a U-Haul. [Above you see the piano about to go onto the truck. Below a portion of my boxes stacked awaiting loading on the truck]. Rachel drove over five hours -- a beautiful day, traffic mostly not bad. With enthusiastic help from approximately six people the truck was unloaded in less than two hours, including quite an expert moving of the piano into the new apartment which, fortunately, is first floor with a patio just outside the living room]. And it has taken me a bit less than a week to unpack all those boxes and put stuff away. -- The kicker is I've had to make an MIA list -- items I know where moved but at present are missing in action because I don't know where I put them. They may surface one by one over the next few weeks. Amazing how odds and ends seek out hidden corners in which to play hookey or a while.
The move was less painful than I imagined many a wakeful night during that month of packing. I only relaxed once we were on the road and out of the NYC traffic. And then things flowed beautifully. This morning all the broken down boxes were taken to the local recycling center.

At present I sit in a living room with no sofa. It looks a bit like one's first post-college apartment, sparse and badly arranged. A sofa will help a lot, lamp shades are very necessary in the near future -- light is very, very important to me. The space is large and the closets are wonderful and not even entirely filled. I gave away so many books, I actually have some book shelves with travel mementos on them instead of books. There are many positives that I think I will enumerate in the next post as it's been a week and I have much yet to attend to and think about. Believe me, it feels good to have accomplished something that is this major. I know many
people are doing it every day for we are a moving society, but most of us don't do it very often after we reach life stage maturity, to coin an indefinite phrase.