From three bathrooms to one. No washer-dryer. No back yard. No separate bedrooms. My childhood house seems like a mansion now. I wish I reveled in it all along instead of comparing it to the larger homes my friends grew up in. I was so fortunate.
Stop!
No self pity, it could be worse. Then again, it could be better... No, no, no, it could be worse.
I wanted to hug the walls of my house and never let go. I felt like a child. I guess there is a reason for that, I am an adult child of divorce (ACOD). This was no ordinary move. At times I wanted this whole disaster to be over with, this move, like a band-aid ripped off I wanted to be moved and done with. At others, I couldn't accept the reality of saying goodbye to my lifelong home. I wanted to run away and never come back. Set the house on fire. Flee. But there was no denying reality when move day came around, this was real. Why was this so hard? Hadn't I already written a Crash Course in Saying Goodbyes? Hadn't I established that four walls does not a home make. It is the people that matter. I beat my hypocritical self up for thinking like a child, unable to accept reality like an adult.
Move day came and went and I am left with the task of boxes I packed so long ago. It is time to unpack the contents of our house into this quaint apartment in Queens. It is not as dingy as some of the others we looked at in my Mother's price-range, but it is small and unfamiliar. This is strange.
I keep telling myself, it is only a matter of time before this sinks in and this place feels regular again, like a home. It is hard to assess when the place is stacked high with brown boxes. Give it time.
Instead of unpacking, I am writing. Instead of dealing with the now, I am doing something else. Does this sound familiar? Yes.
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