I moved today — for the fifth time in fifteen months. Not far — just across the Ravenel Bridge, from Downtown Charleston to Mt. Pleasant — but the distance almost doesn’t matter. If you’re moving, it’s unsettling and a bother.
Also, again — the fifth time in fifteen months. I reused boxes today I used in that first move 15 months ago. I’m getting rather good at this.
Tonight’s blog post is less a set of cohesive thoughts, nor an endeavor to create a lucid narrative, or draw a conclusion. Instead, it’s a collection of reflections that I’ve been chewing on today as I pick up my life and carry it, one cardboard box at a time (and a second set of hands for my bed, table, and chairs) out of my old house, down the stairs, into my car, back out of my car, through a parking lot, up four floors in an elevator, and down a set of halls.
Moving is a good time for reflection. Two reasons for that:
a) physical labor tends to elicit thoughts like this, and
b) it’s the closing of a chapter and a start of a new one.
Even if the era wasn’t distinctly defined on other fronts, each place I’ve lived has felt like a chapter, and each move, a close.
The parameters you set around the way you experience life on the daily shift each time you move to a new location, and those parameters shape the way you perceive the things you’re doing as you’re living.
The closing of a chapter always prompts me to reflect on the one closing — what went well, what went badly, what we learned, how we changed, and what we could work on doing better. In addition, the opening of a new chapter always fills me with excitement — so much you can do with this new space being opened,
The handling of my belongings makes me happy. Handling each piece I’ve intentionally acquired, each piece with a back story, each piece that brings joy into my life. I take pleasure in handling each.
The adversity, too. Moving is hard. It’s uncomfortable. It’s a lot of work. In this context, it was 95 degrees and humid as hell. You can look at this as something uncomfortable and miserable, and fight it the whole way — or you can look at it as a challenge designed to make you smarter, and lean into it and embrase it.