On the Move

Life is busy right now. Plain and simple. Okay, life is always busy. I’m moving. We decided to move into my fiancé’s apartment. Not mine. Not the $2300 one next to the Venice (CA) canals or the $2100 one near Montana Avenue off of Ocean Avenue without a view of the ocean so that we’d both have to move. Nope, just me. I’m moving.

This means that I have to give notice on my apartment this week. Like tomorrow or yesterday or even today. I HAVE TO GIVE NOTICE. In the past, I liked to move. I never stayed in one place for long. It was exciting in a pain-in-the-ass-never-collect-too-much-stuff kind of way. But when I moved into this apartment, I said I was staying until I moved in with my husband. I never thought it would take three years to find him and piles of stuff. So here I am. Moving in with my-soon-to-be-husband. I’ve lived in this apartment for four years. I made it mine. I painted. I rearranged the furniture, thrown out furniture and bought furniture until it finally all worked well together. It’s my home. It’s my past. It’s my single girl pad. And it is packed full of crap.

All of it is familiar to me. The closet is packed to the top with clothes, beach towels, fabric for sewing things that I never sew but I might. I have a rack of a rainbow of thread that reminds me I was, and still am, a sewer. Where will this go in the new place? The cupboards are full of cooking things like my clay pot for brewing Chinese medicinal teas and my Christmas ornaments that I’ve never used in Los Angeles. I have boxes of yarn stashed under my bed next to big drawing pads from my drawing classes. Things I can’t live without, but I rarely use. Not too long ago, almost all of my stuff fit in my Jetta. Now? I need a mid-sized U-haul and a storage bin.

On top of sorting out the tangible stuff, I’m dealing with my feelings of letting go of my past. My apartment was my sanctuary from the craziness of LA. I won’t be able to curl up on the couch and watch bad reality television without defending why I watch it. I won’t be able to come home and inhale leftover Chinese while cackling on the phone with an old friend (okay, I can still do that). When my friends come to town now, they will stay with both of us. We won’t be able to stay up late talking up hair products and asshole guys. We’ll edit ourselves. I’m mourning the loss of my single self. The same one who moaned about being single.

Luckily, I’ll still be able to fart.