At this moment, I have a sense of drowning in metaphor. There are too many well-known ones dealing with major changes and long-term consequences thereof in everyone’s life for me to be honestly surprised, but truth to tell, I only half-imagined how this was going to be.

 

If I had the talent, I know the saga of the actual move from what was to be my last home (after nearly 16 years) to a new one would make a fairly long-running sit-com. Without the ability to write comedy and dialogue, I’ll spare the details and mention only one or two highlights.

 

Several hundred pounds of bookshelves that were to be left behind for Habitat, and one for a friend, arrived here where I have no place to put them. Such treasures as all my baking pans, including the ones that fit my toaster oven, are somewhere between here and North Carolina. How could they have lost the smallish box with my (expensive) no-line bifocals I use to watch TV? Ditto the basket of un-ironed tablecloths I left to await pressing after they got here.

 

The list of missing is long. Yet the worst was that the day before we were leaving to drive to Connecticut, a son and his wife and I were ensconced in our motel after a punishing day when the moving crew called at about 10:30 p.m. to say I had to go and sign some papers. I was undressed, ready for bed. I said he’d have to come to me. Before midnight (just), the fellow arrived, I signed a dozen or more sheets of inventory I couldn’t read. A week later, my NC neighbors informed me the second truck left after 2 a.m.

 

Second? It seems that an 18-wheeler would have been unable to negotiate the entry here. So two smaller trucks were used, meaning two different crews at each end! Not one spoke English as his native language, though they were willing, and two admitted to foreign university diplomas!

 

I won’t bother to tell why, but the moving truck delivering half my household arrived without my bed. The pair of twin beds for the guest room came, and they immediately set them up where there is no way they can stay: one is lengthwise against a wall under a window. No way to make it or use the window. Two chests of drawers, a desk, and a couple of occasional (don’t you love that term?) tables remain literally scattered in the center of the floor. I spent the night in a dislodged grandson’s bed. Insult to injury.

 

Anyway, I’m now halfway fixed in a very nice house (sans A/C!) with jumbled belongings in every direction. Five helpful children and their offspring labored like stevedores unpacking and stuffing cupboards, etc. just to get rid of boxes. In my searches for important stuff, I’ve now re-examined all but about three boxes that remain in the house to make sure the contents matches my labels, or that whatever the movers inserted has a clear consistency — like shop tools, for instance, or my husband’s enormous collection of Hi-fi and electronic miscellany that the boys said I should bring so they could take advantage of anything useful. Anyone interested in coaxial cable or USB hubs?

 

The first week, I kind of staggered at a half run through the day, trying to make some sense of the chaos around me. My dog, not understanding why he couldn’t simply run out the door and go where he pleased as he was used to, is beginning to get the message that a leash is required. My hips complain a good deal about all the time on my feet to which I’m unaccustomed, but I’m beginning to see hope of an ordered life again. I now know that one trip a day up and down to the attic is enough, and two are an absolute limit.

 

I did this to be near my children — all of whom live in this state, for a start. I didn’t realize how lucky I was not to have had to wait out the time I was told I’d have to in order to get into a place here. Another year, I doubt I’d have the physical capability. If there’s anything to make you feel your age, a long distance move is it!