So, I moved to a different apartment in a different suburb last month.
So far, it's been a very good change for me and Choochie. (At least, she seems to
be OK with it now.)
I think I've done way more than my share of moving during the course of
my life. My parents weren't in the military; they were just chronically unhappy
people who were always threatening to move the family away from certain situations, so I grew up either around
boxes or preparing my own boxes. One time, Mom and I pulled an all-nighter
cleaning the place that we had moved out of and loading our last-minute stuff
into our vehicle. (The guy who had helped us move our heavy stuff cheerfully
declared, "Oh, all you have left is just a few odds and ends" and left us.)
Another time, we couldn't fit all of our stuff into our vehicles, so my
grandfather unpacked a couple of boxes and tied some of their contents down in
his car wherever they could fit. The scene looked atrocious, but it worked. (We said that
we looked like the Beverly Hillbillies. Heh.)
I've probably spent months, if not years, of my life either roaming
or preparing to roam. As a result, I've been kind of starving for a place to
finally settle down. (God has been telling me that I'm a "home base"
person, but maybe that's another blog for another day.) So, since about 10 years ago, after I finally
moved out on my own for keeps, I've been pretty stubborn about staying put.
But last year, I really did have to make a move, and I'm glad I did.
And I'm even more glad that I listened to God about how to go about it. Here's
a list of what I learned in the process.
1) "Gradual grace."
In the early part of last year when I decided that I would need to move when my
lease was up, God spoke to me very clearly that I needed to take advantage of
the time to pack. So, I started packing in April. Oh, my gosh -- I can't even
begin to tell you how glad I am that I started so early. I had no idea how much
time it would take to pack all of my earthly belongings -- and with all the
moving experience I've had in my life, you'd think I would have learned by now!
But God knew.
One phrase He kept speaking to me was "gradual grace." For
this particular move, I found out that God gave me grace to get things done
gradually. Packing took forever. Cleaning my old apartment took forever.
Unpacking my stuff has taken forever. (I'm still not done yet.) But it's been
gradual, and it's been OK. I'm not stressed out. Choochie hasn't had to sign up
for pet therapy.
I'm glad God talked to me about doing things for this move gradually;
otherwise, I would have been very frustrated with every step of this long
process. Or if I had waited till the last second to do anything, I probably
would have pulled an all-nighter again, would have been utterly exhausted, and
would have totally hated my life.
2) Organization is my friend.
About 16 years ago, after I got out of the psych hospital and was going through
therapy and tried to get my life back together again, I watched a Joyce Meyer
TV program. She said, "Our problem is that we need to get organized."
I took that to heart, and I almost immediately started filing some stuff away in
the room that I'd been renting. My living space started to look a lot better.
I'm not exactly sure what happened between then and now, but the order
didn't last very long. Maybe I let chaotic people take over my life and eat up
my time, or maybe I got too busy, or maybe I just didn't deal with life very
well. Typically as an artist, I don't always embrace order.
But in recent years, I've finally learned to run from chaos as much as
I can. I don't want that stuff in my house anymore.
At any rate, I think organized chaos is a beautiful thing. See how I
kept my life in order while I was living in a cardboard jungle? I like knowing
where everything is. (Or at least having a general idea of where stuff is.) It
kind of saves me a headache later.
I think finally learning how to administrate my life is really good
preparation for learning how to administrate things in God's house. I like
this. I could get used to this.
3) If Scotch tape and bubble gum
get the job done, I shouldn't make fun. About a dozen years ago, after
working at strange jobs that really didn't utilize my college degree, I
invented the phrase "Scotch tape and bubble gum." A couple of the
jobs where I worked were basically sweat-shop call centers where the breakrooms
were either nonexistent or terrible, or office supplies weren't even provided,
and the pay was peanuts. So, I called these places "Scotch tape and bubble
gum companies," because it was as if they had held everything together with
Scotch tape and bubble gum.
But what if "Scotch tape and bubble gum" is all you need?
During my recent move, I realized that I had run out of garment bags. There
wasn't time to buy new ones, and I had forgotten to empty out some of the ones that I had while I had transported some of my clothes to my new place ahead of the
movers. So I improvised like a good little redneck. I packed my hanging clothes
in garbage bags, cutting out holes where it seemed necessary and using Scotch packing
tape for the rest. The professional movers didn't make fun of me, and I think
MacGyver would have been proud.
4) Macho wouldn't have made it.
Whenever I've moved with my cats (for the past 16 years or so), I've tried to
psych them up for it. While I've packed my boxes, I've tried to tell them,
"We're moving!" but, of course, they speak feline, so I'm not quite
sure if they understand English all the time. They've probably been like,
"I don't know what this 'moo-veeng' phenomenon is that Mama keeps talking
about, but I don't think I like it."
Cats are extremely territorial, so moving is a really big deal for
them. I'm not sure Macho would have endured the emotional turmoil of being
permanently uprooted from one territory and adjusting to another territory. Not
in his fragile state.
Of course, I had originally intended to bring both of my cats with me
during the move. I even bought a second pet carrier so that each of my babies
would have their own carrier... without Macho being incontinent all over
Choochie. (As a pair, both of my cats had always been small enough to fit
inside one large carrier.) But Macho was gone almost five months before the
move.
Of course, I would rather have him here with me now, but in a way it's
an awesome blessing to only have one cat right now. And the team of movers that
I hired may have accidentally freaked him out. (He never really liked human
men.) My new apartment is kind of expensive when it comes to pets, and there
are so many fancy accessories in here (like glass-covered closet doors and a
dry bar) that Macho may have been tempted to play around in and break.
Incidentally, I ended up putting him down at a clinic that's in the same suburb
that I ended up moving to. So, he didn't get to live with me here, but he did
get to die with me here. It's kind of sentimental and morbid simultaneously.
5) Cats will be cats. Self-explanatory.
6) Location, location, location.
My new commute to work (and church, because it's only about a five-minute drive
from work) is about 12 minutes -- or about 15 minutes with traffic. In the part
of Texas where I live, this is a glorious thing. In the past 10 years or so
that I've lived here -- enduring hourlong commutes and soul-crushing traffic --
I feel like I've paid my dues. It's time to give my car a break. All this
trouble that I've gone through just for one little move has been totally worth
it.
7) If you ask God to take care
of every single detail, He will. So many things could have gone wrong (and
did), but Choochie and I have come through it unharmed. We're good to go. And
that's because God has been taking care of us.
He's a good Daddy. Please don't let anybody convince you otherwise.
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