Moving has a way of getting right to all those places in my psyche that I have so efficiently tucked away. I’m moving in October to Santa Fe, NM. It’s bittersweet. Crested Butte is my home. It is my familiar. I feel safe here. However, not walking and living in a town that snows 400 inches every season has finally taken its toll on me. I sold my house. That move in and of itself set me emotionally upside down. My initial reaction was one of complete loss. I thought, “I can never come back!” I have a flair for drama when really rockin’ my self pity routine. Then I sat with it. The house, is just a house. It’s wood, plaster, nails – you know it is the stuff that makes up a house. The attachment is how it makes me feel. Again, I feel safe; this has been my home for seven years. My work now is to separate how I feel in this house from the house itself. I am working to come from a place of abundance, not lack. Abundance says, you are safe always, you can come back and buy another house, Crested Butte will always hold space for you. Lack screams out the opposite on every front. Lack is the lazy way to do it. I needn’t call on faith, muster any courage or take any chances. I have spent some time in lack, I know it well. I also know it is not my friend, it will not serve me.
So I continue to pack. I don’t want to shove it all in box and deal with another day. I am dealing with it now. I am finding pictures of me, in the not too distant past, standing. Those are hard. This illness is hard. Then I stumble on pictures of my best friend, Andy. He died last year, that’s hard too. I miss him more everyday. It does not get easier, that’s hard. I wish I could launch into all the things I that I am unearthing from past that bring me joy, but so far this part of the move has lacked balance. Cleaning out the office, where one puts all of the letters, the photos, the cards, the memories has, so far, been hard. My goal is to have the office done by Sunday. That will be cathartic. All of the memories lined up like little soldiers. Neatly organized and placed into boxes. Everything in its place. It seems to be the best I can do for now. And as I know, sometimes you just gotta take that and call it good. I’m looking forward to packing the kitchen, I mean how much emotion is a plate going to evoke? Me thinks, none. I always like to start at the hard spot and then let it get easier.
Another note on moving, how is it that one person has so much stuff? I’m not a pack rat, but it seems that once all my stuff found out that I was seeking to organize, minimize and store it, it quickly formed a revolt and began multiplying. It is me versus my stuff. The naive thinking of “one box ought to do for this” has been tabled. This is war. Armed with boxes and label-er, I’m going in…
