Moving makes me act like a toddler. In Target last night, I saw a stuffed pirate octopus and commenced carrying it around the entire store before purchasing it. Don't ask me why I need a pirate octopus. You know the answer is that I don't. I think it's a coping mechanism for all of the strenuous adult-ing that moving requires. For instance, it's sunny and 91 degrees here in New Haven today. At 9 AM. The only thing enhancing the sweat that has already started collecting between my boobs is the cat hair that's adhered itself because Tucker is so anxious about the missing furniture and piles of boxes that he's attached himself to my person, in spite of the obnoxious heat. The effect is only improved by the reproachful looks he keeps giving me, as if it is my own personal failing that it is so warm and I am so sticky.
On the other hand, moving puts you in touch with all sorts of sympathetic souls. I went to U-Haul this morning to rent a dolly, thinking it'll vastly improve the experience of hauling my worldly possessions from a basement in this heat. The man said
Sure, we rent dollies, here, come with me. He took me around back to a virtual breeding ground of dollies (U-Haul in a college town, eat your heart out.) and handed me one. I asked him how much and he smiled.
I'm trusting you not to steal it, so you can have it for free. Seriously? I asked.
Seriously, he said.
I take pity on you guys. Good luck with the move and bring it back when you're done. I might be the first person to ever skip with a dolly.
The octopus, and the buckets of iced coffee, and the nice man with the dolly - it's all a distraction from how hollow my heart feels about leaving this place. I love this house. I love how the sun slants in through the playroom windows, how the toilet and tub are so close together you have to pee sitting sideways, how we'd stand over the heating vents in the winter and let the warm air whoosh up our pajamas. In spite of myself, I even love this town. I love the patients and families that tolerated my fumbles and missteps, the pizza places and markets we walked to hundreds of times, the trails and parks that wore down my sneakers with the many miles I ran. I love our neighbors, the little boy who calls me Auntie Cait and steals my heart with his towheaded grin. I love that I fell in love here, and that I can walk by the place he and I met ten times a day because it's quite literally around the corner.
I will miss this house. I will miss this home. And I will miss the girl I shared it with most of all.
