Well it's over. We moved. And it was a stressful week. If you're a reader here (by which you almost certainly know me personally) you may care about how it went. I'll try to articulate.
Last week Monday was boxing day (no, not that one). Since this was a company move we had movers to take care of almost everything, though I put in a fair amount of work getting rid of stuff we didn't need and consolidating things in a way I thought would help the process go smoothly. When the first day arrived I was confident what I'd done would result in a quick in and out for the boxers. That didn't happen. I was surely spoiled after having gone through this once before back in 2014. It was remarkably impressive how ruthlessly efficient those guys were and I hadn't forgotten it. The trio boxing up our stuff this time (though it seems they did a good job) did not power through with the same tenacity. As the day dragged on, which included me watching the two boys (though thankfully our lovely neighbors took the toddler for a few hours), I started to get concerned the job wouldn't be completed. That was not a good feeling. But they came through in the last hour or so and, for the most part, appeared ready for the next step. Even if the worry was unnecessary it cracks me up this crew meandered through the day before peacing out just before 5pm, because of course. I wasn't able to make it to the dump/recycling center that day like I wanted, which both close at 430, so that became a job for one of the next two days. A little later, while I was running out to get dinner, both boys crashed very hard, very early for lack of sleep. I didn't envy my wife tackling that by herself after getting home from work. One positive was that none of our furniture got disassembled or wrapped up and it was extremely pleasant to sleep on our own bed that night.
Day two, Tuesday, was for loading the truck. This was a more impressive crew, and they needed to be in order to get everything out of the house and into the containers. I expected a tall moving truck like we saw in 2014, but that changed this go round. What we got, somewhat unusually I thought, had two separate cargo containers and required moving the truck in the middle of the day to utilize the second compartment. Since most people haven't gone through this I'll continue with what they do. There's a fair amount of setup time taken before getting started. They put plastic wrap on the floors to almost everywhere that has stuff to be removed. Cardboard goes up on the walls of the stairs to prevent damage or excessive marking. You have to walk them around the house and point out anything that isn't getting moved. I realized later that in a few cases I could've been more clear, maybe using post-its or another method myself. Ah well. After that I watched load after load of stuff going out and you can't be anything but complimentary of the guys and the energy exerted. It was, on the other hand, a little annoying to be asked to sign off on the paperwork before the job was completed. For the second day in a row the toddler got quite a bit of screen time and watched TV on a tablet when at home. He also had his last day of preschool in the afternoon. The timing worked well exceptionally well as the loading crew crushed it and were driving off at about 230pm, allowing me to prep the car for a run to the dump and get our son at 3.
Doing pickup at preschool was one of the first times it started to hit me. With all the work to do in the lead-up and the challenging days of handling the kids while attempting to supervise the boxers/loaders, I wasn't completely processing the emotions of the imminent big change. I'd spent time thinking about it in the preceding months, obviously, but in those cases I had time left. In the crazy last few days I buckled down and focused on the work I had to do, basically avoiding thinking about it at all costs. I (we) still don't know when, but Frederick, at some point, became our home. And I'm really going to miss it. That aspect however, my own love for the area where we've lived the past seven and a half years, wasn't the cause of emotions breaking through. It was doing things with our son for the last time. A couple years ago it was hard for me to take him out of daycare when I decided to stay home, and he was only nine months old. This time he was leaving a preschool where he had two teachers who clearly loved him and who he was almost certainly never going to see again. I made sure that day to be the last car in line, got to spent a few minutes with them and even cried with them a little. Then we were off to take care of more to-dos.
That night, still Tuesday, we spent one more night in town. I picked up my wife from her office, her company car getting shipped cross-country, and we didn't account for how long it would take for her to say goodbye to her longtime coworkers there. The boys got a little squirrelly waiting in the car outside, but they were okay. We went downtown and picked up White Rabbit and took it to our favorite place, Olde Mother Brewing. It was basically dead, we didn't run into the owners who we've known forever, and yet it was perfect. Afterward we went home and camped in a vacant house, which was so weird. I was up late dumping all the liquids the movers wouldn't take and for which I didn't have room. It was especially frustrating finding a few items the movers missed. I should've caught that stuff myself, and beat myself up for it a bit, but these things happen.
Wednesday was when #1 and I were going to start the drive, but first we had to take my wife and the baby to the airport. She had a considerable amount of luggage, with stuff for the two of them and a box of frozen Alaskan fish, much of which had just been inadvertently sent to our house in Maryland. We made the hour drive to Dulles in the morning, after dropping off some library books, parked in the hourly lot and helped her to bag drop. With everything going swimmingly it was back to the car and back to Frederick, where I made one last trip to the dump. I thought I'd be good with the following day being a trash day in the neighborhood but since it was Veterans Day it was cancelled and I didn't want to leave junk for the new owners. We got back to the house at approximately the time I wanted to be getting on the road. Unfortunately for me, I had to load the car. And let me tell you, that was a problem to be solved. I had more stuff than I'd ever put in there, between the planned and unplanned items, and had to find space for the dog too. Usually I like to do a practice pack but since everything had been in use the last couple days and an airport run was needed that morning I had to wing it. So the last two hours of my time in Maryland was spent getting all sweaty and nervous about everything fitting. In the end it did, though the entire back of my Explorer was filled from floor to ceiling. This isn't the ideal way to drive anywhere, much less as far as I had to go, but I knew I could make it.
Meanwhile our son had been playing with the neighbors and their dog, who over the past year have become his good friends. Whenever he saw them outside he'd get excited and ask to run over and play and did so frequently. They were the ones who watched him when #2 came unexpected early too. It was a little joy to have them in his life. That final day while I had my head down and was focusing on the pack, I smiled a few times but again wouldn't allow myself think about the fact it was the last time this would happen. When I had everything ready and had to walk over to fetch him, I broke down a little. I could barely talk or say goodbye, but I could soak in the moment. A couple of the other neighbors knew we were heading out and came over too, which was nice of them but also made it harder for me. After I finally wrangled our son and the dog toward the car, I actually sobbed openly in front of a different neighbor, a super nice older gentleman who I like a lot though I haven't known him for long. I was trying to explain that it's crazy the impact kids have on us, because leaving would've been hard enough without them. Doing it and taking our kid away from friends and teachers and everything they know basically wrecked me. I believe that moment was the most emotional I've ever been. Pulling myself together I gave him a real goodbye and a thanks, then we took off.
I expected the drive to be the toughest part, but I was past that already. It's a sixteen or so hour drive from Frederick, MD to the Twin Cities. We've done it plenty of times before, including at the end of August with the same group: me, the toddler and the dog. Typically we stay in a hotel one night and that's what we did again. I don't ever book until we leave so I can best estimate what's a reasonable end destination for the day. Since we didn't actually leave until nearly 4pm, we weren't going to make it too far. Btw, if you're road-tripping with a dog use BringFido.com to search pet friendly hotels. It's easy and has been invaluable whenever we do this. I ended up selecting one between Cleveland and Toledo. While exhausted I didn't want this to stretch into a three day affair and was able to push through. The toddler was clearly exhausted too and after a couple movies actually asked me to take the tablet so he could sleep. I didn't stop again we reached the hotel. After sitting down on the bed and reading the boy a couple stories, I finally crashed. I guess it shouldn't be surprising that at the end of that day I slept incredibly deeply, even for me.
Thursday wasn't so bad, with about ten hours of driving remaining. I only got irritated with the questions and the noise a couple times and overall the day went as well as could be hoped. Our son engrossed himself in the huge Thomas the Tank Engine book I got him for a while. The biggest ordeal was when we needed to pull over on the side of the highway for a bathroom emergency, just outside downtown Chicago. There are almost no places to stop and when I found one he was too cold to do what he had said he needed to do. We loaded back up and I gunned it to merge back into traffic and everything worked out fine (we took care of it at a later stop, inside). Usually the drive through Wisconsin involves getting on I-94 and taking it all the way to St. Paul and Minneapolis. This time, since we're living in the south metro, Google routed me to continue on I-90 through La Crosse and to Rochester before heading north. I was glad I did, because seeing the sunset over the Mississippi River bluffs was gorgeous. And it reminded me that there is some natural beauty in this part of the country too.
I got to our new house at about 8pm, making great time all day. As quickly as possible I unloaded everything we wouldn't need and then left again. Since it too was an empty house our plan to was to stay at my parents that night. There we could sleep on a real bed and have help entertaining the kids in the morning.
It was the next day, Friday, that we effectively moved in. To our dismay the house was filthy, so most of the weekend was spent scrubbing everything, from the floors and toilets to the cabinet faces and insides. I guess it was a blessing in disguise that the truck with the vast majority of our belongings wasn't there yet. We actually lived for a few days not knowing for sure when it would arrive, somewhat fearing it may be weeks (as it had for a coworker of my wife who also moved recently). But, luckily, it wasn't nearly that long and on Monday the moving company confirmed that the truck would arrive Tuesday. I spent one last day supervising the movers, this time trying to think on the fly to direct where boxes and furniture were to end up. There's no way I could've made it through without my mom, who took the two boys to MOA and bought me a few hours.
Now we're here and our stuff is here. The move is done, even if there remains most of the mammoth task of unboxing and organizing a whole house. It was an emotional journey and one that I wasn't looking beyond, so it's a strange feeling to be entering the unknown. This is easily my longest blog post and hopefully it didn't bore. I'm glad it's recorded and I got to relive it all one more time. For my own sake it's been helpful in internally processing everything.
Bye, for now, and thanks for reading.
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