tomorrow, we ride!

Started paying rent on The New House (it still needs a name) today, which meant I could put stuff in it, so I did. There's boxes, mostly of computer parts. A microwave. Nothing essential, just what was already boxed from the last move.

What should be my last commute from work to Lynnwood was pretty miserable. I got home just in time for dinner though. I'll definitely miss having dinner waiting for me after work. Of course, spending 10 minutes walking home is a very different business than spending 30 minutes in traffic. We'll see how that works out.

Took a load of stuff to Whitney's apartment. It's right off the main drag in Capitol Hill, and it smells like paint. It's a cool place though, it fits an art college student well. Funky, old, good location.

Tomorrow - like when I wake up after the sleep I really want right now - I must begin to disassemble my room. I've consciously avoided it all week. I'm unready to walk away from the only space I've consistently called mine for 23 years. That's a long time. For almost a quarter of my potential lifespan has this room been mine, and it deserves a proper farewell. All the ghosts, prayers, urges and fears of childhood lived alongside me here as my companions. Monsters lived in this closet. I've seen snow on Christmas morning out this window. I hid under the bed right there, on the east wall by the door. I carved into the drywall next to my waterbed when I couldn't sleep.

The carvings are still there, soon to be patched and painted over by a mother zealous to design and freshen, to claim what is really her property as her own once again, and to stretch her arms into a twilight free of dependents. The light blue will change, the persnickety roller shade will be replaced, the closet will put on its doors. But part of me will still be curled up in the corner, waiting for evening prayers so he can go to sleep.

a life shed like skin

What a long, trying and stressful move. I spent most of the morning halfheartedly moving the already-boxed items out into the spare room, hoping it would help me feel more ready. It did little. Everyone was focused on moving Whitney out, as she was the morning move. By the afternoon it was my turn to get together a vanload, but it involved moving all the furniture from my room, which was hard. I have a remarkable talent for filling flat surfaces with crud. In many cases, the crud on the surfaces of my room had been there for over a decade. The reason it stayed on that surface was because there was no better place for it. Now, a better (or at least different) place must be found, and after 20 minutes of helpless panicking, I shoveled the whole thing into a box. Boxes of "stuff", and I hadn't even started loading the car. It was not a good start.

I took a load of furniture down later, and made an impromptu stop at Jared's, which is 10 blocks south. He greeted me with beer and quesadillas, a welcome respite. Him and Ryan and Josh also helped me unload the furniture, which went quickly. I tried to take 65th home and got lost. I was tired.

I am tired. Change is hard, moving is harder, pulling up such deep roots is hardest. Every new home carries a vision of the life you will lead there, the things you'll do and surround yourself with, the rhythm you will keep. Things that fit that vision stay, things that don't, go. Do this enough times and you'll have nothing from some of the old lives. But what happens when the old life is much stronger than the vision?

In my case, it meant mood swings. I'd try to pack stuff in my room and feel panic. I'd be unpacking into the new place and feel hope. I'd drive between them and sometime around 220th it would change like weather.

I only pulled one pair of underwear from my dresser before I moved it. I still need to shower tonight. Thankfully everyone else is in bed. I forgot to keep a good shirt here for church tomorrow. Tomorrow may be the last time I attend church in our current sanctuary, which has been there since the 60s. The fire damage from the port-a-potty arson was bad enough that the building is a total loss. Soon the insurance claim will go though, and the building will be condemned and demolished. The church I grew up in will be entirely gone.

Creation, destruction. Every new being comes out of the death of another. Snakes eat their old skin, like the tail of the ouroboros.

What will grow in the fertile soil of my boyhood's grave?