Moving Sucks

I’ve moved so many times in my life, I don’t even bother trying to remember the actual number. All of my moves in my adult years have been done solo. As a matter of fact, moving Roger into my house, was the first time I ever moved with another person…and that doesn’t even really count, considering I didn’t technically move anywhere.


I’m a bit over the top when it comes to moving. Things have to be packed in such a way that unpacking them is easy. Boxes have to be labeled consistently. Even in the military where they pack for you, I was always making sure it was done to my standards. I unpack everything the same day I move into a new place. I will stay up all night getting the furniture placed right and all the boxes unpacked. In other words, it’s probably been a good thing that I’ve never had someone move with me, because I would certainly drive them to want to move out as quickly as possible!

(We are not moving)

Getting the floors in the house replaced has been kind of like moving. We basically had to pack up most of our rooms and move everything out. So, for the first time, Roger got to experience a little bit of how wacky I can be. (I warned him, but it’s never the same as actually experiencing it). The move out wasn’t that bad. We had friends help us and the guys just sort of moved the furniture out before I could say too much about it. My friend, Klara, helped me with the little things…books, candles, etc. That wasn’t too bad either, because I didn’t have a lot of junk to go through, so since we went room by room, it went quickly and was packed pretty well. I will admit, though, that once everything was moved to the garage, I went back and moved some of the boxes around so that I could move them back in the house in the correct order.

Tuesday, after work, I rushed home from Weight Watchers (much later than I normally am) eager to get a quick hour in with Kaelyn before she went to bed and get to work on moving everything back in. First, I was overcome with how gorgeous the floors looked…a feeling that was quickly replaced with anxiety of all the dust that was covering absolutely everything. I quickly started telling Roger the plan. Dust the house now, then start bringing in the furniture…dusting each piece as we go. Finally, we’ll move in the boxes, unpack them, and put the boxes back in the garage immediately.

He just stared at me. In some ways overwhelmed by my (over)excitement, but mostly not wanting to give me the bad news.

We couldn’t move back in. The glue on the tack strips still had to dry. That included the stairs. We had to wait another day.

This news did not make me happy. I didn’t want to spend another night confined to our bedroom and not have full use of the kitchen. At least Kaelyn was able to go back to her own room, but the rest of them…right there with us!

To make things better, Roger promised that after work on Wednesday we would put everything back. We would follow my plan and he wouldn’t complain about it at all. I accepted this.



Until….

I got a call on Wednesday morning. Roger had several jobs in San Jose. He was with his boss and his boss thought it would be better for them to travel there, spend the night, and get them all done at once. And while this makes perfect sense, and something I would normally accept…it wasn’t ok with me that it was completely at the last minute. Who would wait until someone reports to work to tell them they have to travel for a few days? Roger said they would likely be gone until Friday morning.

And once I got over the fact that I had to cancel my own work trip to Reno to accommodate this, it occurred to me that if I needed help moving back into our house, I’d have to wait two more days!

But, not to be deterred, I remembered that I’ve moved so many times by myself, that there was no reason why I couldn’t do it again.

Roger didn’t get to experience, first hand, how “focused” I get when it comes to moving and unpacking. But, in the end, it was probably better for both of us, that I did the move alone. I could focus without the guilt of making someone I love keep an insane timeline…just to accommodate my neuroses.

So, in the end, the house is back to normal. I am sore and sleep deprived. We are shopping for area rugs this weekend, and Roger is coming back tonight! One night early :)