Sorting Things Out

We've spent most of our time the past few days sorting through what we'll take and what we'll leave behind from our tiny dorm apartment as we head off for Seattle. Nothing brings clarity to what qualifies as junk like paying by the pound to have your stuff moved 1200 miles. The bubble gum knick knacks, old high school sketches and trophies, and crayons broken to pieces were all tossed. As heaps and heaps of garbage left our apartment, I thought: how gluttonous, how wasteful we are. And then movers came to pack our stuff today. It only took one day. The movers wore shirts that said, "We move your life." And I thought, "Oh God, I hope not." Only a small stack of boxes occupies each room. Our stuff is packed away in these small boxes. It will be loaded into one small corner of a massive truck and hauled off next to several other people's stuff tomorrow. It will be lifted, weighed, carefully calculated and considered. There's so much going on, it's hard to remember it all. Somehow, I managed to forget to set aside any of my shoes. Every last one of my shoes is boxed up. Also packed were both the girls' favorite blankets from their bedding. So...tonight there were a few tears. These are just the first things we'll have to learn to live without. But, once the sniffles subsided they eventually each curled up tightly on one small corner of their beds, breathing and sucking their thumbs in unison just as they've done every night since I can remember. I'm sure they will do that in our new house, too.