For the first 22 years of my life, I managed to stay in the same place. I lived in the family home in Renton all the way up until my graduation from college. I don’t think that was too unusual, but what happened afterwards my not be a common occurrence.
By last count, I have moved 20 times in the 30 years since then. It started when I moved from my childhood home because my then wife couldn’t stand my mother (move #1) and it has brought me here to the old-fart capital of the world, Fort Pierce, Florida (move #20). In between, there have been some good reasons to move while the only purpose of others was to shake up my life.
I don’t really remember the move to Mill Ave. in Renton. I remember that the apartment was older and we paid $250 a month for it. It had a terrific view, if that is possible, of downtown Renton.
I do, however, remember my move from it. As I mentioned earlier, the note on the ironing board told me to move, so I did. Since I had to leave Renton, I thought, “wow, I could live anywhere I wanted to. I’ve always wanted to live in Seattle.” So I moved to Edmonds. Didn’t hit Seattle at all on my first try. Didn’t even hit it on the second, third or fourth, only ending up in Seattle on move #6.
My moving skills improved rapidly over the course of the next few moves. Practice makes perfect as they say. The worst had to be when my girlfriend upgraded from a one bedroom to a two bedroom in the same complex. I thought this is going to be so easy. Not! I now know what ants feel like as they move in those endless lines from one point to another, carrying leaves and twigs. The move took two straight days of lugging from Point A to Point B with no break at all.
Moves across town or across state were far better. Spend a lot of time loading everything into a truck, take a break as you drive said truck, then dump everything out on the other end. If you’ve ever moved then you know the miracles of time compression and expansion. When you load a truck, it can take all day. But unloading it takes a tenth of the time, even less if the truck has to be returned by 5 p.m.
It doesn’t seem to matter the size of the vehicle either. When I moved from Renton (move #2) I packed everything I could take in two loads of a Pinto station wagon. That is all I could get out of the house before I was permanently barred. By the time I had moved to the first house I ever actually owned in Port Orchard (move #14) I had to make two trips in a 26′ truck. Stuff just kept multiplying.
I also moved out of state once, sans truck. I put most everthing I owned into storage, packed the rest into my Honda Accord and moved to San Francisco (move #10). A month later, I made move #11 back to Seattle, well, actually White Center.
Moving to Florida (move #17) greatly lightened my load. It took only five large UPS boxes and whatever I could fit into the back end of my Ford Windstar. That was it. Of course, the stuff quickly multiplied again because by the time I moved into my house in Melbourne, Florida two years later, I was back to a big truck again and multiple runs back and forth.
My choices of what to move seems odd to people I move in with or who help me move.
For example, I have two big boxes of model parts that I use to create my art with. They have traveled with me since I lived at my parent’s house. I even left some really expensive stuff back home just so I could put these two huge boxes into the Windstar. Of course, my pirate costumes all have to come along as well as my guitars. Everything is up for grabs otherwise, except the scrapbooks, photos and scraps of memories that I keep in a file folder, such as my report card from Catholic school (by my grades I appear not to have been a good soldier of the lord).
Now, don’t get me wrong. I’ve never enjoyed moving. In fact, I hate it. While I love the feeling of renewal that comes with a new space, I don’t like other aspects. I like to pack. I’m really good at it. In fact, I should have started a moving company (would have saved me a lot of money over the years, too.). I don’t like lugging stuff and I’m not too fond of unpacking. In fact, I number the boxes so I know which ones have to absolutely be unpacked versus the ones that could be unpacked later after I’ve tired of opening box after box and making endless decisions about where to put all my stuff in the new space.
I have learned to loathe heavy furniture. I just don’t move it as much anymore. And when I do, I curse it endlessly, such as my poor futon. It didn’t want to fit at all in the elevator here at Old Fart Central. Only when I couldn’t get it into the guest room did I finally figure out that it could be taken apart fairly easily and carried in pieces. Sadly, I’m sure I will forget this when it comes time to move it again.
I have learned a valuable lesson or two along the way. When I moved from West Seattle to Port Orchard (move #14) a friend of ours, Bill, taught us about the Burrito.
If you’ve ever moved a lot of clothes then you know what a pain in the arse it can be. The Burrito solves the problem. Here’s what you do. Lay out the biggest flat sheet you have. Take all your clothes out of the closet and lay them in the center. Leave the hangers on. Tie up the far corners of the sheet, two opposing sides first, then the other two. Voila! Everything read to move and virtually wrinkle free. You can even throw it out of the window like we did so you don’t have to lug it down the stairs.
My most recent move came in January. Well, actually it started in October and continued through to the end of December. I moved from Vero Beach to Old Fart Central here out on North Hutchinson Island. It’s about a 15 minute drive by moving van. It was perhaps my most painless move, only because a divorce stripped me of half my furniture on move #19, greatly lightening my load in more ways than one (feel free to read between the lines).
I know there are more moves in the offing in my future. I don’t own anymore, I rent. So at some point I will be shuffling off to points unknown.
But I’m finally at a point in my life when I’ve learned two important words that anyone who has moved as much as I should have learned long ago: moving company.
Settled into life here on the Treasure Coast, with two or three more boxes still waiting to be unpacked,
– Robb