JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: It's moving day! No, not for me, thank God, but for my daughter and her family. My part is to be at their current house at 7:15 am (keep in mind it's an hour and twenty minute drive...) and watch my grandson "Paulie" while his mothers travel to Lewiston, Maine to sign the documents. Then, when they return, I'm taking their dogs - yes, again, but only for overnight this time. With their cat safely, if unhappily, locked in a room in the new place, this will clear the way for the local moving company to shift them 33 miles west.
My last move, in 1994, was also with a baby - six weeks instead of four months. Also? I had a seventeen-month old (that's the person who qualifies for a mortgage now. Sure didn't imagine that back then!)
Ross and I also hired a moving company, and, like Victoria and her wife, tried to pack up as much as possible to make the process quicker (we were only going 16 miles west!) However, Ross was a lawyer working something like 14 hours a day, and what little management/organizational ability I had was utterly scrambled by motherhood. It didn't help that we didn't actually start the process until a week before the moving truck arrived, unlike my daughter-in-law, who bought dozens of boxes and began packing as soon as their offer was accepted.
I recall the process only in glimpses, similar to the way people in a car only remember flashes of the terrible accident. There was the moment we were both up at 3am, trying to clean the kitchen while passing the fussy baby back and forth. At one point, I was nursing my son in the cab of the mover's truck, sobbing. For some reason, I have a clear memory of having no box in which to put the under-sink cleaning products, and deciding, "&#$% it, it'll just transfer with possession." Then nothing until Ross and I were standing in the main 40X20 foot room, saying to one another, "How are we ever going to fill all this space?" (Spoiler: we did.)
I've been in the same house since then, and friends and my children ask me if I consider getting someplace smaller, on one floor, say, and with MUCH less yard to maintain. And that would be nice! But honestly? I'm not sure I've recovered from the last move yet.
Dear readers, what are your moving stories?
We've moved three times and, other than remembering that we had boxes in storage, I have absolutely no memory of the process other than the fact that we moved ourselves each time . . . .
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