Pack It Up, Pack It In

Let me begin ... packing for yet another move

Here we go again … another move!

Man, just typing that is exhausting.

Once again, I am packing up my life and moving across the country. While D.C. to NYC isn’t quite the same “cross-country” vibe as when I moved from D.C. to Seattle, or Seattle to Austin, or Austin to NYC, it still feels like a massive undertaking and life upheaval.

Dash and I are in survival mode.

Although I never wanted to leave NYC and can’t wait to be back, the process of making it happen is overwhelming. I’m two months into my new job now, and have been traveling back and forth from D.C. to NYC each week, never on the same weekly schedule. This not only causes a lot of life disruptions, but also prevents me from settling into new patterns and schedules because everything is in constant upheaval. Everything became so insane that I sent my beloved old dog, Pippa, on a vacation to stay with my parents, since I felt bad about sending her to a dog sitter each week (not to mention, I felt poor having to pay for a dog sitter each week). Don’t worry, the cat is fine. And the dog is being spoiled and is living her best life.

The dog sitting is the only thing I’m saving money on these days. I’m physically ill thinking about how much money I’ve spent in the past few weeks — between all the job travel, the first and last month’s payment for my new apartment, the fee to break my D.C. lease, the moving expenses that are beyond ridiculous. Plus, I have to sell my car, but I am maintaining blissful ignorance over what I may have to contribute to make up the difference between the selling price and what I still owe on it.

By the way, does anyone want to buy a Lexus?

Through all the temporary upheaval, the hardest thing for me is to avoid falling into the panic cycle. Just because previous moves I’ve completed as an adult have been traumatic, that doesn’t mean that things have to go wrong in this transition.

Remember, I decided that life begins at 50. So let’s do some accounting.

The job is going well, and I feel I’m settling in and making an impact in my role. And, unlike the horrors of my last two jobs, it’s not a toxic cesspool overrun with small dick energy, so we are actually able to get things done. What a concept!

Finding an apartment actually happened pretty easily, in a radical departure from a typical NYC apartment search. In spite of all the media coverage relating to recent broker scams, I actually found the unit through a management company, not a broker (oh right, I saved a potential fee of at least one month of rent here too!). My lease is signed, utilities are transferring, loading docks are reserved. A dear friend who lives in the D.C. area near me recently moved into a new house and generously gifted me all of her moving boxes, which are rapidly being filled with all of my worldly possessions.

While I still have a ridiculous amount of work to do to prepare for the move, and inevitably a million things may go wrong or, at a minimum, sideways during a move, it feels like things are falling into place.

This is a feeling I’m not familiar with.

Obviously, it’s too soon to tell, and I don’t want to jinx anything. But it’s such a change in perspective, I have to keep reminding myself to change my inner monologue and confidently state that I DESERVE FOR THINGS TO GO MY WAY.

Yes, I have been to hell and back. But somehow I overcome every obstacle — maybe not triumphantly, but at least I keep putting one foot in front of the other. I should have a lifetime supply of good karma points ready to cash in.

I understand that many things about the rest of this month will be emotional, difficult, traumatic, and beyond my control. But in a few short weeks, I’ll be ready to begin the rest of my life — and I will have my dog back.

So jump up, jump up, and get down. We’re doing this.

While Grammarly was used to improve the writing of this post, no forms of AI were used for content creation.