Stuff

Leigha Ionescu

— 3 min read
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Stuff

Anyone who has ever moved (which is to say, everyone) knows that moving is stressful.
Sometimes we have to move for terrible reasons—death of a spouse, loss of a job—but even if the reason is good—getting married, relocating for a new job—the stress remains.
Moving is stressful because it involves change—which some of us love and some of us loathe—but change in itself is not the reason we end up sitting in the middle of the living room floor, surrounded by boxes, moaning to no one in particular, "I can't do this anymore." The reason for that moment of despair is because of stuff.
Nothing will make you hate everything you own more effectively than when you have to pack it up, haul it to another place, and then unpack it.
All of this is to say that our container finally arrived.
This past week was spent unpacking 153 boxes of useful stuff like kitchen utensils and raincoats, as well as meaningless detritus like packages of paperclips and swimming goggles. While there were a few moments that I questioned my sanity (I have not used a paperclip in approximately 3.5 years, I have no idea why I thought I should bring a box of them here) and wished the whole container had sunk into the ocean, over all I'm very grateful our stuff managed to endure the nearly three-month journey via U-Haul, train, boat, and truck to reach us safe and sound. Amazingly, not one item was broken, scratched, or cracked.
Turns out, we really know how to pack our stuff.

Santa Cruz moving crew, helping us move our stuff in the very early morning way back on March 11th
Best team in the world to help load a U-haul with our stuff on that chilly morning of March 11th
Packing our stuff onto pallets at the shipyard in Richmond on the afternoon of March 11th
75 days later, all that stuff pulls into our driveway
I thought it was very clever that the delivery truck opens on the side as well as the back doors, which made unloading much easier. Mohammed, the driver, was not only incredibly helpful with the unloading of our stuff (which he did not have to do) but also amazingly strong. I'm sorry I didn't get a better photo of him
wimpy me could only carry one box of stuff at a time

After opening several boxes of this stuff, I began to realize that someone has an obsession with not running out of American sponges


A portion of the leftover packing material. Unfortunately moving one's stuff is not great for the environment

Unpacking so much stuff turns out to be very time and energy consuming so I have nothing else to share this week. Apologies for the rather ho-hum content but sometimes life is like that and therefore sometimes this blog will be like that.
Thank you for reading anyway and I hope that you, wherever you are, had some time this week to enjoy, not only your stuff, but the friends and family with whom we ultimately share it all.
Be well.

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