Packing Up

Tomorrow is the day. The truck comes, the boxes start loading on for the next two days and I hide somewhere washing down lorazepam with a pitcher of mojitos. Okay, so maybe not that last part, although I wish it were possible.

I’ve counted it up and I’ve moved fifteen times since I was 22 years old. That’s fifteen times in twenty years. Some of the moves were small, a few milk crates and garbage bags to a new short-term crash pad in Manhattan. Some of them have been 2,000 or even 3,000 miles. I’ve been blessed with friends and family willing to help on almost every move and in some circumstances, people actually took me in when I had no place to live. From these facts, one might presume that I move easily or at least well or perhaps that I even enjoy moving.

The truth is I hate it. No, that’s not right, hate is not the correct word. What I feel is definitely an emotion that is about three steps past anything as rational as hate. Moving terrifies me. Transition terrifies me. I had this same sense of irrational dread before getting married and before becoming a mother. In my daylight mind I understand that once I get to the next place, all will be well and in fact, I will likely be happier than I was before. But, in the sludgy emotional dank at the bottom of my spirit is a complete terror of that journey from the known to the unknown.

When I was a child one of my recurring dreams started with my windows becoming ringed with fire. Then the door and then the walls would light and finally the fire consumed everything, my entire house, even the ground below me. I would fall and fall until I woke up in a cold sweat. This comes back to me at every major turning of my life, this fear of an all consuming flame that will take everything and leave me in free-fall.

All transition is by definition a loss, but usually we see the finish line and we believe the trade to be worthwhile. We exchange our present for a brighter or at least a different future. This is the lure of religion--travel through the vale of tears and paradise awaits you! I’ve never really bought it. Because this is the truth. You have in your hand the now. You can imagine what is next. But the journey, that point where you step out into the unknown is where you have nothing. It is the place where all can be and often is lost.

This is where the inspirational turn to my essay should show up, but it isn’t coming. Unfortunately, sometimes things are just dark and difficult and risky and nothing will improve them but time and movement. Do I believe God is with me in these times? Yes. Does it help me? Not at all. God is perfectly willing, for whatever her reasons may be, to let loose life’s shitstorm at a moment’s notice. I don’t believe I am any more protected or special than any of God’s blessed children across the world who suffer loss and change on a level that make my fears look petty, at best.

And there, I suppose, is the lesson. There is no true security in staying put. You can live in one place your whole life and a tornado or a flood or an earthquake can take it all away in the blink of an eye. We are all in transition every day that we breathe, we are all journeying every day that we live. Security is an illusion and we can lose it all whether we stay or go.  So here’s to loss, to chaos, to fear and to the unknown. I cannot say I’m facing it bravely or well, but I’m facing it, and that at least, I think, is something.