One Day: Ready Or Not

I'm not ready.

There is still some packing to be done, mostly Christmas ornaments under the basement stairs. The books have not been donated to the library, and sit in a ragged pile in the garage. There are stacks of things to be thrown out in every room. Tonight, in addition to cleaning up and finishing the packing, I need to drive Frances to spend the night at my parents'. Tomorrow morning the movers come. Tomorrow night will be my first one in my own place. (The one I've been paying for for almost two months.)

I'm not ready. Logistically. All the details left to be sorted in the next twenty-four hours. I haven't had a full night's sleep since the first of July but this week has been particularly brutal. Work all day; either to the apartment for a tidy and stock or home for packing; off to bed well after midnight.

And all the little ambushes, the boxes of this or that tucked into some closet's corner or an underused shelf, to be discovered and set off while packing, like a landmine. The shoebox with our wedding thank-you cards and invitations inside. The teddy-bear I gave Erik when he came back from a weekend trip to Boston to tell him I was pregnant. The pendant he gave me on our fifth anniversary. The photo cd from our Vegas trip, to celebrate his fortieth birthday. The framed picture of the three of us all dressed up and grinning like fools at the camera. The gap between what I thought I had and what I had has not widened, but I feel it more acutely with all of these reminders, these tangible, physical memories of promises broken as soon as they were made.

The grief over what is lost and the anticipation over what is coming next are walking uneasily together, side by side, hand in hand. It is an odd feeling: get me out of here; don't make me go. One way or the other it's coming, and there's still no point in wallowing. Who cares if the glass is half-full or half-empty? Or nearly-full or almost-empty? Who cares? Does worrying over it ever add even so much as an extra drop? Will the water taste better if I've measured and described it first with perfect accuracy? It just is.

Empty picture hooks are hanging on the walls all over the house. Furniture has been disassembled and tagged for this apartment or that. The drawers and cupboards in the kitchen are empty. Colour-coded boxes mass themselves in every room. The closets display only empty wire hangers. But Frances's toys are still out and scattered on the floor, the kitchen table still needs to be cleaned, her tiffany butterfly lamp in the dining room still needs to be well-padded with bubble wrap and placed carefully into a box, the shoes need to be stuffed into bags.

I don't have time. I'm not ready.

Posted by Andrea at August 16, 2007 8:27 AM under Decision 2007

EMAIL this entry

(comments fields are below this section)