Moving, Pt. 1
A temporary relocation for me, a permanent relocation for my home…I think?
I moved to South Carolina on Sunday. Surprise!
But not really a surprise. My family put down roots in SC about a decade ago. My aunt, who I grew up with like a second mother, had decided to move away from the hustle and bustle of New Jersey, where the weather was always nice and the taxes much lower. So she ended up here, in Myrtle Beach. Now I can’t give you an exact timeline of what happened, because I was young, and entirely wrapped up in myself. Middle school is a tough time for everyone, and I was so preoccupied with keeping my head above water…Can you blame me? I do remember three things from my first trip to Myrtle Beach. One, my childhood best friend Amanda had moved here some years previously, and I got to see her again! Two, Piggly Wiggly the supermarket. I was genuinely flabbergasted that there was a legitimate, real-life, legal corporation named Piggly Wiggly. And three, Sonic Drive-In. No joke, Sonic blew my middle-school mind. I was fascinated. Obsessed. The first time I pulled up to Sonic in the backseat of my dad’s car and asked him to order me some fries and a chocolate shake and watched the girl come rollerblading out…If I could bottle up the essence of “childhood wonderment,” it would be from that moment. I think I begged and pleaded for my parents to take me to Sonic every day for the entire two weeks we were there (and they acquiesced, because I was even more stubborn and annoying than I am now). And then I decided I was going to work at a Sonic one day.
Well, unfortunately, I’m now 22 years old (happy late birthday to me!) and I have never worked at a Sonic. So that’s depressing. But maybe in retirement. Anyway. Back to the South Carolina story. When my aunt moved down here, my parents were investing in properties, so they snagged up a couple in South Carolina. And then they did a lil bit of fixing up, and then they rented them back out. They even bought a farm about half an hour inland of Myrtle Beach, so apparently, we have a tenant farmer. Not like a tenant farmer tenant farmer. Just a farmer who happens to be a tenant. Moving right along!
Around 2015, they bought this house that I am currently sitting in. My aunt moves out of her home and into this one. Then my aunt buys her own house in a neighboring development and moves out of this house. Then my father moves down to South Carolina from New Jersey and brings our dogs with him. My mom does this weird commuting-halfway-down-the-Eastern-seaboard thing. She still works in Jersey. I’m still in school in Annapolis, and my sister still lives in Manhattan. There’s a lot going on, and she just hasn’t been able to move.
Not to mention, she hasn’t sold the house in Jersey yet because my family is a coven of hoarders and we lived in that house for over a decade. Lots of stuff. LOTS of stuff. So obviously, stuck at home for the quarantine, she takes this chance to force me to move the fork out. Like a good, sweet, obedient, perfect, angel child, I do as she says. I gather up all of my extra clothes and purses and hats and belongings, and I shove them into a 100-gallon trash bag. And then I run out of room and ask for another. And another. And … I end up with six.
That’s six of these bad boys, just as a visual.
Six. 6. Seis. Sest.
But it’s totally cool. I pack it up all pretty, and I drive it all to a Goodwill, and I do a Good Deed. Here’s hoping I make some little girl’s day when she sees something she likes - especially when she sees it’s brand-new, with tags! How much of it was brand-new, you may ask? I cannot answer that, because my mother might slice my throat open in my sleep when she realizes how often “I’ll wear it!” was a lie. :)
Then my mother realized, if I’m at home, and cleared out, she can move me and what little belongings I do have down to South Carolina, and it’ll be good to get me out of the COVID epicenter, and spend some time with my dad. So this is our conversation:
“Let’s go to South Carolina this weekend.”
“I can’t, I need permission from the Superintendent because of the travel ban.”
“So ask.”
(This is where I put up my request, and, lo and behold, am approved.)
“Great. Let’s leave Saturday.”
The approval came on Friday morning. I do nothing on Friday. Actually, I binge watch half of Netflix’s new dating show, Too Hot to Handle. My mother comes in Friday afternoon and looks around and asks me if I want to leave tomorrow or Sunday. As the self-crowned Queen of Putting Things That Make Me Feel Some Type of Way Until Last Minute, I jump at the opportunity to leave on Sunday. I said, “My plants are supposed to arrive tomorrow.” (Spoiler: my plants arrived in New Jersey on Monday.) So Saturday rolls around and I proceed to do, once again, nothing. I put on a make up and a dress because technically it’s croquet day, and I take about a trillion selfies, and then I binge the other half of Too Hot to Handle and resolve to write a blog post about. Then around 8 PM, I decide it’s about time to start packing.
I lay on the ground for thirty minutes, just to be sure.
Then I start packing, for real. First I lay out all that remains of my belongings, and I stuff it into two little carry on suitcases (including my Away, which I’m not even sponsored by, but am obsessed with, so you should get one too) and a duffel bag and a 60L pack. My mother comes in as I’m laying on the ground, admiring my handiwork. She says, “you have to get rid of your stuffed animals.”
This is where things go south.
This is me around 4/5 PM, mourning that croquet didn’t happen.
This is me around 11 PM, inconsolable because my mother told me I needed to get rid of my stuffies.
I fully blame Toy Story for the emotional attachment I formed to my stuffed animals because I may or may not be convinced they’re alive when I’m not looking. Just to be safe I try not to leave them face down so they can breathe and they don’t get mad at me.
But realistically, I cried for a lot of reasons.
I cried because I have to leave my home. I spent my middle school and high school years in this house. And although I spent the bulk of my college years in Annapolis, New Jersey was always my home. It was a truly safe space, it was comfortable and familiar and loving. And my room was truly my private space. When I thought about my home, I pictured my house in Jersey with all it’s quirks.
I cried because I have to leave Bancroft. This one seemed silly, and a little out of place, even to me. I didn’t even particularly like Bancroft Hall. I lived on the top floor and climbed a million stairs a day, I lived on top of three other girls and we all shared one sink and one shower, I didn’t have really any privacy to speak of. And yet, it was comfortable. It was solid, and strong, and stable, and I knew exactly what I was getting. It was my home away from home. And I realized that I was never going to live here again. I was never going to climb up five flights and stairs and throw my backpack on the ground and collapse into my chair as I yelled “HELLO?!” into my empty room. I used to love getting out of the hall on weekends and breaks; driving over the bridge and seeing the Yard used to make me literally sick to my stomach. But confronted with the reality that I would never again have reform and see my friends after long weeks apart, I realized I was going to truly, genuinely, legitimately miss Bancroft Hall.
I cried because I’m not ready to be an adult. Because I’m going to need to learn how to do adult things on my own. At home, my parents cook dinner, and they do laundry (sometimes…), and if the oven stops working or the sink stops draining, they take care of it. In Bancroft, others serve my meals for me, and they do my laundry, and if the sink stops draining, they take care of it. I don’t really know how to be an adult, and I’m moving to a foreign country in just a few months time, and I don’t know how to do things. I don’t know how to speak Japanese, or rent an apartment, or fix a flat tire. I don’t even know what I don’t know, and it scares the living heck out of me!
I cried because I’m so uncertain about my future. I know I’m moving to Japan, and I know that along the way, I have a pit stop in San Diego. But I don’t know what that means for me; I have no idea what to expect. And I won’t even have friends. Only a handful are coming with me to San Diego. And I won’t have anyone in Japan. I can’t even imagine when the next time I’ll see them is going to be. Months? Years?
I cried because the tide is coming in, and I’m stuck in the sand. I cried in mourning for the missed experiences of my final semester of school and the final vestiges of my childhood, and I cried in apprehension of the challenges that lay ahead of me. And I cried because forkin’ Toy Story somehow convinced me that my stuffed animals are all going to hate me forever.
The lone photo I took of my home while packing my car up. When one door closes, another opens, right?
Turns out that the demons are scarier at night. Come morning, I packed all my bags into the back of my car and I walked one more time around my house and I stood on the patio in my yard and I breathed in the smell of the air, and I got into the car and I drove off and didn’t look back. And if the road seemed a little fuzzy for the first thirty minutes of my drive…
Well, that’s between me and my rear views.
