Pursuing Home

We wanted to leave Tuesday morning. No matter how hard we worked or how much we packed we were just not ready.

To begin with we couldn't fit everything. We had to sort through our tubs and take out the things we couldn't bear to leave. Everything else got set on the curb for the neighbors and passers-by to pick through.  Even though I was leaving those things behind, I hated watching strangers sift through them. Some people even came into the yard and eyed the things we were still sorting through. Vultures.

Tuesday night the landlord came to check out the house. We had almost everything packed and outside. Rusty, his friend, and I had been cleaning like crazy and the landlord gave us back $400 of our $500 deposit back.

We worked until about 2 a.m. packing the trailer. We still weren't ready to go in the morning.

We were up at the cracks of dawn the next day. I took the baby and went to the laundromat so Rusty could finish packing and sorting. Once home the final prep commenced. We carefully finished loading the trailer. We loaded all the essentials in the Explorer. 

We were way overloaded. The trailer was heavy and things were loaded on the tongue. The car was packed to the point where the back doors couldn't be opened unless we wanted things to pop out. The roof cargo bin was at full capacity.

We backed the Explorer up to the trailer and hitched it up. We went to load the bike rack on the tail gate only to find that it wouldn't fit because of all the stuff on the trailer tongue. There was absolutely no room left anywhere else for our bikes so we strapped the bike rack to the back of the trailer. We looked like the Beverly Hillbillies.

It was late in the evening when we loaded up the dogs, cats, and baby. The sun had already gone down so I didn't get to take a last picture of us in front of the house. I was sad about that. It's the house we brought our baby home to. It's where we fell in love. This is a big move and I was feeling a little nostalgic.

I was excited too. I've waited my whole life to leave Tucson. I was upset about leaving my family. I was disappointed with them for refusing to say goodbye or meet my daughter. I was worried that I'll never make it back there and see them again.

There was nothing else to do but to look forward and hope for the best.

We were finally leaving.

This weekend we had our moving sale. It's been pretty hard having people in my yard poking through my things, bargaining with me for better prices on the things I've spent a life time collecting.

Most people have been really nice. They bought small things and chatted a bit. If they were nice I gave them a better deal. If they were buying books and obviously loved them I gave them a better deal.

I've also had some really shitty people stop by. One woman drove up in her Lexus. She had perfectly styled hair and manicured nails. He son asked me if all the pieces were there to a board game I was selling. They were and I told him so, but his mom told him I was lying so she wouldn't have to shell out two bucks. She picked her way through the yard looking for deals. She asked how much a U of A woman's sweat shirt was. I've only worn it twice and it was $32 new so I asked for $5. She made a disgusted noise and threw it down. I sold that same sweat shirt this morning for $3 to a lady who was super nice and living on a budget.

One man came by with his iPhone and told us how everything we were selling was mispriced. He looked up similar items on eBay to show us our errors. When we offered to match the eBay prices he said he wasn't interested.... He left after 20 annoying minute without a thing.

A friend dropped in this morning and didn't find anything she couldn't live without but she gave us a Starbucks card as a going away present. I'm really looking forward to a hot chai on the first morning we see snow.

We've done well. We've made almost enough to pay for the gas to get to Illinois. We still have more than half the stuff we started with for sale.

Still it hasn't been easy.

Last night, when the baby woke me up to nurse, my mind kept leaping to random things I knew I wanted to pack, but didn't know where they were, or how they would fit.  I tried repeatedly to tell myself to forget about it for the night; to relax and enjoy this quiet time with my baby at the end of such a frantic day.  I'd calm down, then suddenly something else would come to mind.  This hectic pattern kept repeating until the sated baby was soundly sleeping and her exhausted mother was wide awake worrying about things that really didn't matter at that moment.

Today was another long day of sorting, lifting, packing, and generally being overwhelmed.  The trailer we're hauling is 60% to 70% full now, and the house is 20% to 30% packed.  We have a long way to go.  I'm beginning to accept that we're going to get rid of a lot of stuff.  It's inevitable.  There's no way to ignore that fact now.  I'm almost tired enough of sorting and packing to embrace it.  Almost.

The baby is teething right now too.  I'm not sure what made me think a cross county move with a teething baby and a car load of animals was a good idea.  I must have lost my mind.  Poor baby was so tired by all the activity and the effort of pushing teeth through her gums that by the end of the day she dissolved into a frantic puddle of screaming baby.  This was about the time that her father and I were trying to load all the big odds and ends on to the trailer so that we could lock it for the night.  She sat there in her walker and wailed, watching us, while we struggled furniture up the ramp and called soothing things to her.  It took 1 boob, 4 ounces of pumped milk, 6 lullabies, and 2 parents to calm her enough for sleep.

Tomorrow is the start of my last week at work.  We hope to leave shortly after my last day.  The week looks busy.  There are doctors appointments to attend, vet records to pick up.  I have to return my borrowed breast pump to the WIC office.  I have to work for 3 different clients.  All this on top of getting packed up and ready to leave.

I'm breathing deeply and imagining our new home.  We have a basement and there are seasons and grass.  I imaging my little girl growing up in a place with lots of friends and a good school.  I see the dogs playing in the yard and the cats relaxing in a sunny window.  I imagine me and my boyfriend having a beer on the front porch watching the sunset.

I know we can do this.

I always intended to leave my home town.  I've been here my whole life and it's never been a place I really felt at home.  I never wanted to raise a family here.

At 30 years old, with a six month old, 3 dogs, 4 cats and a charming fiance, I was beginning to think it was time to accept the fact that, like it or not, I was putting down roots here.

Then my fiance came home from work early one Monday about a month ago.  He'd been laid off.  Bad news.  Horrible, really.  I work part time as a home health aide, but 20 hours a week at just over minimum wage wasn't going to touch our rent, much less our other bills.  I was scared.  Even with unemployment, it was going to be rough.  We spent a week thinking and discussing our options.  I picked up a few extra hours here and there to try and help.

It was rough.  I missed my baby a lot.  I was worried about our survival, but in the back of my mind I kept thinking that this could be our chance to leave here.  The more I thought about it, the more it seemed like the thing to do.  I went to my fiance and told him that if he got another job here we'd get comfortable.  We'd have another kid, our daughter would start school and we'd find a bigger house, but it would still be here.  I told him I wanted to leave.

He agreed.

We settled on Decatur Illinois pretty easily.  He has some extended family there and we'd be a lot closer to his immediate family to the north.  Looking up rentals online, we found that they were beyond affordable.

Once we made the decision I felt free.

We're leaving!  Here we go!!!

We used our tax returns and bought a 6x12 trailer.  We're going to load up all our possessions, our daughter, and our dogs and cats and move to Illinois.  In about 2 weeks....

I've already started purging my unnecessary encumbrances.  I have a lot of stuff, and it's time to start fresh.