Wanderlust

Burn, baby, burn!

Now that the moving chaos has somewhat abated I find myself with a small window of time large enough to squeeze out an update to our loyal webfans and pseudo devotees. Moving is hell on earth. I’ve had a couple of days to reflect on this and to soothe my feelings of self inflicted torture and I don’t think I’m exaggerating. I used to speculate that people were boring pods of comfort, unwilling to move beyond their own geographical sphere without intense, psychotic withdrawal. But now I’ve come to realize it’s very simple. No one wants to put themselves through the racking, torturous pain of moving if it’s not absolutely necessary.

It didn’t used to be so difficult to move. Seven years ago, freshly graduated from collegiate endeavors, I packed everything I owned into my mini Hyundai Accent GT and moved several states down the Atlantic seaboard with only a week’s notice and a minimum of fuss. When I foolishly threw my singlehood out the window five years ago to move in with George from New Hampshire to State College, I rented the SMALL truck and there was enough space left over for George to put his entire Kawasaki Vulcan 750 motorcycle inside. But when you begin to co-habitate, and god forbid marry, your stuff becomes “our stuff,” which is lots of stuff.

And even when we moved the first two times, to our house with Ken on North Oak and then out to Utah, it wasn’t that bad. Not an experience to cherish, but certainly not the stuff of nightmares. We managed, after a profitable yard sale, to fit all of our belongings and random junk into one of the LARGE trucks before we ventured across country. This time, we were meandering across town and it took TWO trips in the very LARGEST truck Uhaul provides and even then we still had to make trips to pick up miscellaneous items the following day.

So where did all this shit come from? Damned if I know. But while standing in the middle of our new garage, surrounded by a sea of boxes and furniture, I have been seized with a sudden yearning to see it all go up in flames. A secret, burning desire to see all of my useless belongings that seem to own me disappear in smoke. Ahhh… nothing to unpack, sell or store. And I wonder how much of it I would really miss. If I came home tomorrow to a pile of burned timber and ashy appliances, I’d be pretty upset. But underneath it all, a small spark of relief and the feeling of finally being free.