The last two weeks have been a blur of boxes and bubblewrap and trying to balance seeing people I love so much with getting my apartment ready to move two thousand miles to Philadelphia. This is what I wanted. I'm excited. But moving this far is, to say the least, a bit stressful, and it hits me most at night.
I must be forgetting something.
Everything is packed, except for clothes and toiletries and food and things we use literally every day. Everything else I can think of is in a box. But what if there's a secret closet that I've forgotten about and it's full of all the most precious things that would have somehow helped me make friends in Pennsylvania and they're going to be left behind because I haven't looked in that closet for two years!!
Can't wait to have no friends thanks to the forgotten closet.
I know it's not logical.
Justin has to be in Philadelphia for his new job before the moving company was available, so I'll be loading the trailer without him. Thankfully my in laws are coming to help; without them I would have no chance of success. But if by chance you aren't doing anything on the morning Saturday March 9th..... ;) I will provide pizza and donuts and anything else to tempt you there.
I've never moved this far, in my life, ever. Not even close. You could probably add the mileage of all my moves together and it still wouldn't be close. I keep thinking, this is crazy! This is insane! I have never even been to Pennsylvania and now we are setting up apartment tours and I have unrefundable flight tickets and everything I own is in boxes. We're really doing this! This is what I wanted, but it terrifies me.
I've lived in Salt Lake for seven and a half years. Just about the length of the Harry Potter series. Graduating from Hogwarts? (Makes a note to scratch this geeky metaphor when I reread this in the morning.) When I came here I only knew my grandparents, and somehow I managed to scrape out a place for myself. I have met amazing kindred spirits here, people who I've laughed and cried with, people who make me feel instantly that I belong, which is such a tough thing to do. I worry that I won't be able to make friends anymore, that I left that talent in my single years, and that being in a new place will make me clam up and never say a word to anyone.
I wanted (and want) this, but boy howdy. I am scared.
I will be two hours from New York. Close to Boston, the Atlantic Ocean, the Smithsonian. A world of history I've read and loved and never been to. This is going to be an adventure. That's what I tell myself on nights like tonight to get to sleep, because it will be an adventure. But it's going to be tough, and I wish that I could take all my friends with me. What if I never get cast in any shows out there? Theatre is how I make friends!!
What if, what if, what if.
There are so many things to do that each new things seems like the most important thing, and I've lost my sense of proportion when it comes to any crisis. Selling my car and finding a screwdriver to take the license plates off the car once it's sold seem the same level of importance: They both have to get done before I can move. And I have to move.
Justin and I start driving across the country on February 28th to get him settled for his job, and then I'm flying back on March 7th to load up the trailer on March 9th. Then I'm cleaning the house like crazy for a weekend and flying back out for good on March 12th, with our cat. I've never flown with a cat and I'm super anxious that she'll meow too loud and get us kicked off the plane and then what will I do????
This is doable.
People fly with cats. People move across the country. They do it every day.
Right?
I am sure I'm forgetting something.
