{"id":1590,"date":"2010-11-16T08:35:57","date_gmt":"2010-11-16T13:35:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.greatsociety.org\/?p=1590"},"modified":"2018-10-30T16:29:54","modified_gmt":"2018-10-30T20:29:54","slug":"moving","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/?p=1590","title":{"rendered":"Moving"},"content":{"rendered":"

I\u2019ve always identified with those Fight Club<\/em> scenes criticizing the mass of useless stuff that we surround ourselves with.\u00a0 And, of course, the great cathartic moment where the apartment, and everything in it, is blown to hell.
\n
\nI hate moving.\u00a0 Once upon a time, my goal was to never have more than a single carload of stuff. Whenever I did move, I left all my second hand furniture and anything that wouldn\u2019t squeeze into my little Acura hatchback behind. For my first moves, in my early and mid 20\u2019s, I managed to stick to my guns.\u00a0 Move on a dime. A couple hours to expertly pack the Acura and then gone and done.<\/p>\n

Then I graduated to a pick-up truck load, then several pick-up loads.\u00a0 Then I moved to a little U-Haul.\u00a0 Finally, in 2009, I paid over a grand to hire three guys and their big fuck-off truck.<\/p>\n

I know, I know.\u00a0 Everyone hates moving.\u00a0 I\u2019m afraid, though, that I have some sort of neurological disorder.\u00a0 As soon as I sign a lease, I begin obsessing about moving out.\u00a0 The countdown starts right then and there as the short days click through the quick moving year.\u00a0 I lie awake in the final months of a lease and worry about how I\u2019m going to pack everything.\u00a0 What am I going to lose this time?\u00a0 What will be broken? Will I have the energy to face another move? Do I spend another grand that I don\u2019t have, or do I break my back and the backs of a group of drafted friends?<\/p>\n

I was so happy with my current place.\u00a0 I moved in there with a girl and it was cozy and intimate for a year.\u00a0 Finally \u2013 for the first time \u2013 I felt grounded.\u00a0 The self-loathing fueled quicksand beneath my feet started to solidify. We signed the lease for the second year \u2013 to start on July 1st \u2013 and my girl left me on July 4th.<\/p>\n

Now, in an apartment I can\u2019t afford, I\u2019ve found myself sliding back towards the quicksand. My landlady, strangely shocked that her perfect couple tenants have now been reduced to a wayward bachelor, spent July through September demanding that I take on a roommate, or pay more rent.\u00a0 She didn\u2019t calm down until I got a little forceful with her, which wasn\u2019t too much fun. While she\u2019s been good for the last month, her position is clear \u2013 I\u2019m out of my place come next July.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve begun a sort of passive packing\/apartment shopping campaign.\u00a0 The closets have been cleaned out and an idle search for cheaper apartments has begun \u2013 which is a tough call in the DC area.\u00a0 If I want to maintain some level of peace and privacy, I\u2019ll only be saving a few hundred a month in rent.\u00a0 My alternative is to move far, far out once again (an unpleasant experience in the past), or become that guy \u2013 the slightly too old bachelor living in a group house with a bunch of dysfunctional 20-somethings.<\/p>\n

Come the spring, things will have to move into full swing.\u00a0 My plan this time around is to pack everything up in April and May, get every scrap ready.\u00a0 That way, when I bring in the men and their truck, it\u2019ll be a faster, more organized process.\u00a0 I want everything to be one trip, just a few hours. Bed set up that night at the new place and done. Then a week off from work to have a good, long drunk.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s Monday the 8th as I write this, though you won\u2019t see it until later next week, but tonight I\u2019m viewing an apartment.\u00a0 Or, rather, the second floor of an old Bethesda house. The rent is a decrease of $400, and utilities will bring that back up, but it\u2019s part of my passive search. It\u2019s also shared housing, but with someone who\u2019s in their 50\u2019s and working more jobs than I do, so that shouldn\u2019t be an issue. I\u2019m debating moving without warning as soon as possible\u2026 Like a Band-Aid.\u00a0 Get it over with and rip it off.<\/p>\n

This time around, in general, I find the prospect of moving a little less stressful.\u00a0 Now that I\u2019ve decided to flee this city \u2013 and my life \u2013 once I\u2019m financially clear, I\u2019m living for that light at the end of the tunnel.\u00a0 It should just be two years, then I\u2019m free to go to a town I can afford, and reboot my life in an environment where I can actually breathe and think about the path that haunts us all \u2013 the next steps, where we go, who we are.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I\u2019ve always identified with those Fight Club scenes criticizing the mass of useless stuff that we surround ourselves with.\u00a0 And, of course, the great cathartic moment where the apartment, and everything in it, is blown to hell.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[268],"tags":[149,269],"class_list":["post-1590","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-project-mondays","tag-moving","tag-project-mondays-2"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1590","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1590"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1590\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1591,"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1590\/revisions\/1591"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1590"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1590"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1590"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}