It was a real bear when a mover asked me, "Where do you want this? It's awfully special!" The mover was referring to my heirloomed wedding dress. My heart broke thinking of the dreams that I had. Now I had to find a place to put that box, so I don't see it. I placed it between boxes in the office/storage room for now. I know that my daughter won't want to wear it, but I won the Kodak National Bride in that dress. My wedding photographer entered my bridal photos into that contest without my knowledge.
My once favorite glamour shot photo that I took when I'd just become a multimillionaire at 34 years old really bothered me, too. I put it in a box face down. I don't like that woman. Her values were way out of line. She craved money, status, and expensive things, and her husband knew that he had to provide her a life of a princess or queen. The stress that that must have put on him. She played a part in pushing him to lie and cheat people at work. She had a part in ruining her marriage.
One of the fruits of that marriage, Drew, will have to return to Sacramento before the weekend, since his Spring Break is coming to an end. So I devoted my day to clearing out that room. It had more than just Drew's things. It had Sara's childhood things that had been in the storage unit. I ran into their baptismal dress, her blanky, and her special classwork. Tears ran down my face. I missed my kids so much, so I texted them so. My life that I built is gone. It's just me now.
Then my cell rang. My son decided to come back to Sacramento tonight. Hurray! Man, I needed him to come home. Thank you God! I had hoped that my dad was going to visit today and that would have taken the edge off, but he got too busy with his friends. I'm saddened by that, but I had a lot to do to get ready for Drew's return.
As I brought in my garbage cans, my friendly neighbor informed me that there were a lot of complaints about my truck being parked outside.
"I thought that I had three weeks!"
"No, only three days. It's hard living with old people. Like I said, there's a lot of 'Don'ts.'" Then he looked into my garage and saw it filled with empty boxes. He suggested that I make a trip to the dump and explained how to make the packing paper smaller.
"I've been crying a lot today, so this is just more than I can bear. It's going to be awhile before I get that truck into this garage again," I said with tears welling. Being a former marine, he was really uncomfortable and retreated with compassionate words.
After I did my errands I decided to try to put as many boxes into my truck as possible. While I was loading the truck with my garage door illegally opened too long, my friendly neighbor's wife appeared. She told me that her husband felt so badly about upsetting me. I explained while waving my hands which held my knife for breaking down the boxes, "I just had an upsetting day. It wasn't him."
Alarmed, she said, "Here, let me take that knife."
We talked as I organized and loaded the boxes space efficiently into my truck. I explained with tears running down my face, "I just left my life of 17 years in San Diego. I'm alone now and really miss my kids today."
"Where's your husband?"
"Married to someone else, but I divorced him. He was a liar and cheater. I really don't think that it's reasonable for someone to move in and have the garage cleared in three days. I'm a trained project manager, and I can't imagine meeting that deadline," I said with tears welling.
"Well, I'll see if I can get you more time." She did. Her husband came over and taped a permit onto the inside of the back window of my truck. I had until April-ish---right around the corner.
I did manage to clear the garage for the Nissan to park. The only thing left are the boxes full of packing paper. Now I just have to organize and unpack the office/sewing/storage room, and I'm done with my move! Just in time to start my new teaching job April 2nd.
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