So we’ve moved. Out of the apartment we’d lived in for ten years and into…nothing. Most of our stuff goes into long-term storage, some stuff already got shipped to Abu Dhabi (where we’re moving into a furnished apartment), and some stuff will get wadded into the suitcases we’re lugging with us to the Middle East.
We’ve said good-bye to the apartment where our boys were babies, toddlers, little kids—stages of life that are, quite literally, mapped out on the rug: there the diarrhea attack, over there the “mommy I think I’m going to be sick…” and over there where Caleb wrote on the rug in marker that he hated us.
This move is different than a move cross-town, or even cross-country. When you know that half-used jar of curry powder will get used in your new digs, you toss it in the moving box. But should you really bring that jar half-way around the world? Or put it in storage for a year? No. You should throw it away. But throw away a half-full jar? Can’t someone use it? That is the type of insanity that’s been rolling through my mind for the last month: who wants my half-used spices, the almost-full box of uncooked risotto, the barely touched bag of tater tots (aka, god’s perfect food)?
Lots of people have been telling me that moving is a fresh start, a new beginning, a chance to let go of the past (and half-used jars of curry powder).
But you know what moving is, really? It’s the ring of hell that Dante forgot—or was too afraid to think about. Continue Reading →
