Stages of Moving

Stage 1: Denial & Naivety

I don’t have that much stuff. I don’t think packing is going to be that hard this time. I’ve already boxed up my books – how much more could I need to do?

Stage 2: Coping / Bargaining

Okay, there is actually a lot to do, but it’s not so bad. I can just drop everything in the garage and focus on cleaning the apartment.

Stage 3: False Hope

I hired movers for two and a half hours and they did a hell of a job. I’m almost done, I think to myself, foolishly.

Stage 4: Penance

All of my muscles are strained and it is manifesting as pain in my sternum, so I am now convinced that I am having a stress-induced heart event as some kind of cosmic payment for my earlier insolence.

Stage 5: False Hope Revisited

Everything has made it to the new location! There is an end in sight! I can rest a little and allow myself to heal!

Stage 6: Humiliation, to Bring Me Back to My Lowered Station

Everything is in boxes and so I can’t do simple tasks like cook or get dressed. I spend the day wearing a bathing suit instead of a bra. I still have no internet and all I want is to watch a season of Survivor so I can feel some shred of normalcy.

Stage 7: Menial Physical Labor to Remind Myself That I Am a Maggot to Be Crushed under God’s Cruel Toe

I have to wash every dish before putting it away because I have brain worms and I decided, like a fool, to wait to install a dishwasher. I am constantly bent over to unpack boxes or clean something. The mountain of Shit in Boxes never gets smaller. Things will never be normal again.

Stage 8: Regret & (Hopefully Figurative) Self-Immolation

Who was I to think I deserved a nice place to live? What gave me these wild aspirations, this sense of entitlement? Who do I think I am?

Stage 9: Which Appears to Me Only in the Realm of Dreams

I am unpacked and life is normal again.