Moving Day

It’s moving day in the Hunt household.  I’m finally making the inevitable trek to the suburbs. In all my previous moves, I looked for locations that were a short driving distance to my office and strategically located close to bars and restaurants.  Now, I look for proximity to good schools and streets that are quiet and look like they would be safe for riding bikes.  And now I give bonus points to any neighborhood where I can see other kids playing outside.  That used to be an automatic scratch.

I’ve moved many times in my life, and only one of them went well.  In the late 90’s, I was moving out of my apartment.  I had everything packed in boxes, and I came home from work one day and everything was gone.  Some scoundrels parked a fake moving van right outside my door and took everything.  My neighbors didn’t say anything because they knew I was moving.  The robbers took everything except for my furniture.  As much as that sucked, it was the best move ever.  I loaded up a couch, loveseat, and bed and moved to my new place. I got a check from the insurance company and bought all new stuff after I moved.

It was the best move ever, but not a method I would recommend.  After the burglary, I had to tell my boss that I couldn’t come to work that day because I didn’t have any clothes.  They could’ve at least left a pair of khakis and a button-down shirt.  Bastards.

In all my previous moves, I searched for locations that would shorten my drive to work and shorten my drive to a network of trendy bars and restaurants.  Now, I look for proximity to good schools and streets that are quiet and look like they would be safe for riding bikes.  And now I give bonus points to any neighborhood where I can see other kids playing outside.  That used to be an automatic scratch.

This move will not go as smoothly.  The last time we moved, Ella was three months old, and her only possessions were baby bottles, onesies, and stuffed animals.  Now, her wardrobe has expanded, and she has enough stuffed animals to start a legitimate stuffed animal zoo. I mean a San Diego-sized zoo that has a gondola system to alleviate foot traffic.  And don’t get me started on how many toys she has. 

You never realize how much crap you accumulate for your kids until you have to move it.  

Moving would be easier if I used this opportunity to purge things I no longer need, but I’m terrible at letting go.  I can’t let go of:

• My favorite pair of jeans from my twenties whose odds of my ever fitting into again are roughly the same odds of Vladmir Putin winning back-to-back Nobel Peace Prizes.
• A shoebox full of cassettes containing the greatest collection of mix tapes assembled during the 1980’s. The kind where half the songs begin with the dang DJ announcing the song over the intro music.
• My Superman lunchbox.  You can ask my sister why I can’t let this go.
• My CD collection.  I don’t own a CD player, but these are coming with me.
• Every piece of artwork that Ella has ever drawn at school.  I can’t even make out half the images, but I had to increase the storage capacity from the small to medium U-haul box because I can’t throw any of them away.

As many times as I’ve moved, I should be better at it.  I start with a plan, and I go in order.  I even use colored tape, so I know which box goes in which room. But there’s always that last box.  No matter how much planning I do, that last box always ends up being a smorgasbord of crap that couldn’t find its way into the appropriate box.  So, they all get thrown together as a collection of misfits so that these are the contents of the last box I packed:

• Three coat hangers (Two wire and one plastic)
• Three unmatched socks
• A Fork that doesn’t match any set of flatware that I have ever owned
• An assortment of extension cords of random lengths and colors
• A laptop that I used in grad school and hasn’t been booted up since Katy Perry kissed a girl
• A belt I haven’t worn since the Bush administration (I’m not even sure which Bush)
• 3 iPods that haven’t been charged since the release of the iPhone
• One red Solo cup

I always get a bittersweet feeling when I move.  The sweet part comes with 1000 extra square feet and the new house had me at walk-in pantry.  And every frustrating moment is trumped by Ella’s smile when she excitedly talks about having her own playroom.  The bitter part comes because I feel like I’m breaking up with someone.  We’ve outgrown this house and we have to move so both girls can be in the same school district. Even when a relationship no longer works or has run its course, you can’t deny the good times. From an architectural standpoint, there is nothing memorable about this house, but it will always be full of memories.

In pictures, this house is just a bunch of wood, bricks, and faux-granite countertops.  But that’s not what I see.

• It’s not a dining room.  It’s a dance floor where a chunky one-year-old danced to Taylor Swift while singing her own gibberish rendition of the lyrics.
• It’s not a windowsill.  It’s the resting place for a bulldog’s enormous melon head as he barked at the top of his lungs every time his dad approached the front door after his morning run.
• It’s not a kitchen sink.  It’s a bathtub for tiny babies.
• It’s not an area rug. It’s an undeveloped piece of land where an entire Lego village is about to be built.
• It’s not a bedroom, it’s a makeshift recovery center with an oxygen machine, rubber gloves, and syringes where a baby recovered from open-heart surgery.

You have to keep moving forward, but La Cabeza drive will always have a special place in my heart.