Moving Out

Moving really is a strange thing.

I mean, think about it. First, you obtain a great deal of cardboard boxes. Then you take every single solitary thing that you own, put them in said boxes, transport them to your new residence, and take them out of the boxes. Then, you dispose of the boxes you went to such trouble to get.

It seems pointless when taken out of context.

Also, within context.

I started packing a week and a half before moving out of my parents' house. The process began with my beloved books. I figured that I would stack them alphabetically in the large cardboard box that my pots and pans had come in.

This was a good plan, except for not being a good plan. And it wasn't a good plan due to two unforeseen (by me) problems.

First problem: I have too many books. Except not really, because there's no such thing as too many books. But I have enough that they cannot all fit in one large cardboard box. As I soon discovered.

Second problem: Cardboard is stupid.

"A cardboard box can't hold that many books anyway," said my mother (whose mother skillz allowed her to foresee this problem). "It will rip. You're going to have to divide your books between several boxes."

Which was cool and all, except I didn't have several boxes. I had failed to complete the first task of moving: obtaining a great deal of cardboard boxes.

Word on the street was that boxes were free at the State Liquor Store. It was a pretty sweet deal minus the fact that my relationship with the State Liquor Store is exactly like my relationship with Alaska.

I've never been to Alaska.

After a week of not being able to progress with packing because I had no boxes, I finally took my journey to the uncharted territory of the State Liquor Store.

Immediately when I walked in, I knew something was amiss. It was me. I was amiss. (And also a miss.)

"Yes, yes, Awkward Mormon Girl," you say patiently, "We all know that you don't drink and that you've never been to the State Liquor Store or Alaska. That's why you were amiss. And you're an unmarried woman, which is why you are a miss. We all know this. Do stop being so dramatic."

To which I say, no. You do not understand. As I entered the store, the gravity of everyone's focus readjusted to include me in its orbit. I could feel people's eyes darting towards me and away. I could almost hear them asking themselves, "What are we going to do?"

They thought I was a teenager.

I look like a teenager. I do. I worked at a fast food restaurant when I was in college. Patrons frequently asked me which high school I was attending. A sixteen-year-old coworker hinted that he would like to date me--until he found out my real age, after which he only spoke to me to ask me to cover his shifts.

My youthfulness can be annoying, but it's not a real problem...unless I'm in the State Liquor Store.

Somehow I made it to the cash register without being carded.

"Yes?" said the cashier, looking at me warily.

"I just need to get some boxes," I explained. I swear everyone in the store gave a collective sigh of relief.

I filled my car with as many liquor boxes as it could hold. Obtain a great deal of cardboard boxes = check. Now I could properly move onto the next step: put every single solitary thing I own into cardboard boxes.

Baby Brother helped me. And by "helped" I mean "helped but mostly sat on my bed and critiqued my packing techniques." Because Baby Brother is an expert on packing, Rubik's cubes, and mortality (among other things).

The night before I moved, I spent six hours straight packing. I stayed up late packing. And then woke up early the next morning to finish packing.

I had never packed up all of my possessions before. I've always thought that I don't have very much stuff or very many clothes.

Packing showed me that I was wrong. Wrong. WRONG. I had four boxes full of knickknacks. Why do I have four boxfuls of knickknacks? Knickknacks don't even do anything. And I had some dozen pads of notepaper, like a million clothing items, and a mysterious bounty of shoes for a girl who doesn't even like shoes and has never bought herself a pair in her life.

I was all, "Wow. I'm so over this materialistic stuff. I'm going to go live in the mountains with just a knapsack and these Eeyore socks that have been in my dresser for ten years but don't actually belong to me."

But by the time I finished packing up my boxes, I had no desire to also pack a knapsack, so I decided that I would go ahead and move into my new apartment and worry about enlightenment later.

I was done with packing just before the time I was scheduled to arrive at the apartment. My family and I and one of my future roommates transported all of the millions of boxes to the apartment. Upon completion of which act I began to unpack all the stuff I'd packed just hours before.

It took three days. When I was finally done, I congratulated myself on completing this rite of passage into adulthood.

Then I built a box fort in the living room.