Vain Hope

In my last post I wrote, "As my staging event approaches, I hope to be able to write blog posts more frequently..." Ha!

Life has been so hectic, and I've had so much to do, felt so much stress, that I cannot remember a more difficult time. I wish I could say I'm handling it with grace, but I am not. I'm peevish and snap at the people I love, and I know I'll regret this even more later, feeling their absence from my life. I already do feel bad, as soon as my temper calms. Then I shift to feeling sad, about the loss of my home and my routines, and at my own imperfections. My orderly, boring little life is disintegrating, and my unease is causing nightmares for the first time since I can remember.

I wonder if I've made a huge mistake. I wonder if I'm really as resilient as I thought. What was I thinking? I also know that I'm my own worst enemy when I cheat myself of the necessities of exercise, rest, meditation and good nutrition (I've been eating a lot of hurried, fast-food meals: NOT my usual fare!). Yet this is the time I'm least able to give myself permission to take these things. I'd better turn over a new leaf, and fast. Starting tomorrow, I am going to get at least a half-hour a day for the exercise, at least 15 for the meditation, and I will make a greater effort to get to bed early. As for the food, it will be a little easier now that the madness of the last sale is over.

Speaking of the sale, I have to say it was a mixed outcome. I did sell a lot of junk for nickles and dimes, and yes, I got rid of a lot of little things, which is nice, but I had hoped to sell the larger things too, which would have made the huge effort worth the outcome. As it is, I still have most of the furniture I'd hoped would go. A couple hundred dollars for three days work is hardly a good return, and I'm left thinking I would have been better off giving that junk to a charity shop and focusing on selling the larger items -- yet I have listed all those larger items on classified ad sites as well, so perhaps that isn't the right way to think about it.

Anyway, what's done is done. I have one more day to pack, four more days at work and perhaps a few hours of evening time on three of them, to finish getting everything ready to go into storage. God bless my wonderful family and friends, who are all so supportive! My sister is leaving tomorrow, having helped me with the sale, and my dearest good buddy Mark will be here on Thursday night, to help me get the remainder done, the van loaded and the apartment cleared. I'm treating myself to 90 minutes of professional cleaning service to finish up my obligations to my landlord, and once all my belongings are in the storage locker, Mark and I will leave for our road trip. That time will probably be the biggest blessing of all: One week with no obligations and plenty of time to catch all the little tasks I may have missed in my rushing around.

Tonight is also the last night I will spend with my little furry friend. My sister is taking my cat back to my mother's townhouse. She will live there while I'm in Morocco. I feel very sad about saying goodbye to her. I know she'll be well taken care of, but I know it will be hard on her, and she will wonder why her life has suddenly been so disrupted, with the loss of home and companion. I will feel very bad if her health suffers, as it well may. She is 13 years old, and although healthy, she's had a pretty stable life and has lived 11 of those years in one apartment, which she's now going to leave forever.

Well, I do need to get some sleep now so I will write more later.

As my Staging event approaches, I hope to be able to write blog entries more frequently. These last few weeks have been more hectic than I would have believed, but I think I'm "over the hump" now. So I'll first update readers of this blog on my last three weeks, and then hopefully add new entries as things proceed.

I am now only 4 weeks from departure. So much still to do! It has been a busy few weeks. I can't tell you about it all, too much has happened. So here are some of the highlights:

First of all, I think there is an angel looking out for me. In mid-July, I went to see the dentist because I felt a small, slightly painful lump on just below my lower molar on the right side. I had had a root canal there a few years ago. Anyway, the dentist wanted me to go on penicillin and "wait and see" if it would go away. When I pointed out I didn't have the time to wait and see, he referred me to a specialist. Well. It is a darn good thing that that little bubble appeared when it did. It turned out I had a "failed root canal," with lots of infection, leading to oral surgery. It wasn't pleasant, but it wasn't exactly painful, either, what with Novocaine and all. The infection has been cleaned out, the cause of the problem removed, and healing is now proceeding. The endodontist tells me that all that's left to do is heal up. No problems on the horizon. What a blessing that this happened BEFORE I left for Morocco! Anyway, the surgery and the post-op healing have been just one more thing in my life, so I guess that's at least some excuse for why I'm behind in my blogging, no?

Then the week following the surgery, my mom arrived for a good long weekend of packing. We got my entire library packed (which was a VERY big job)! In addition, we packed up some of the kitchen stuff, and she spent at least an afternoon wrapping sweaters for storage in a cedar-enhanced storage bag. Thanks, Mom! We also got to spend some great time together just enjoying each other. Goes without saying that was the best part of the visit.

While she was here, I mentioned that I was going to sell my car, and named the price I was planning to ask. Mom has an elderly Toyota that is suffering from "salt cancer," that bane of Minnesota vehicles. A California car with less than 50K miles, no rust, with a price of only $2K, sounded too good to pass up. So she is buying my car! I'm happy to have one less thing to sell, but how to get it to Minnesota? After some consultation with my best friend Mark, who knows about cars, and who would be my number one choice in the world to Road Trip with, the decision was made. Mark and I will DRIVE THAT CAR TO MINNESOTA! Woo-hoo! Road Trip! I'm so thrilled! Mark and I had talked about "some day" doing a road trip through the midwest. Mark's especially interested in visiting Deadwood. I haven't seen Deadwood myself, since the '70s (hopefully it hasn't changed much since then), but I LOVE traveling the highways of South Dakota, and I'm so psyched I'll be able to show Mark some of my favorite roadside attractions. It's another world up there. Most importantly, I'll get some quality time with my sweetie and best friend in the world, and Mom will get her car.

Meanwhile, I finally found a storage space I can afford. After much research, I found a small business with owners who wrote me that, "We can certainly help with your storage needs... We usually only guarantee rates for one year but we would definitely extend that for someone volunteering for such a worthwhile cause!" The space is out in the desert town of Palm Desert. It turns out the desert cities are the best storage bargain in Southern California, but more to the point, the climate there is much better for storage than out here on the Coast, where mildew is always a problem. So, that deal is sealed. Things are coming together! I feel so blessed!

So now I just have the grind of packing ahead of me. Also I have to purchase insurance, for stuff left behind and the equipment such as my laptop that I'll be taking with me, and making my travel arrangements. While there's still a lot to be done, I do feel on track. I've even started packing the stuff I've been setting aside for the journey.

Stay tuned; it only gets more interesting from here on.