One Piece of Advice

     I remember the first real move I made, not counting moving around in college. My new wife and I had been living in a one-bedroom apartment in a high-rise in the city, and we were moving to the suburbs, renting the first floor of a house located right across from a fire station.

     I rented a U-Haul trailer that attached to the back of my car. My wife and I and a friend of ours did all the packing, the loading, the moving, the unloading. One problem: I got a traffic ticket because I unknowingly drove the U-Haul on a parkway that didn't allow any trailers or commercial vehicles. But it was still a lot cheaper than hiring a moving company. And a lot more work.

     These days I wouldn't dream of trying to do it myself. We have far more stuff, for one thing, despite all our downsizing. And I am older, not as strong, and more prone to injury than I was 40 years ago.

     Anyway, we are all packed up now -- or almost -- and the movers are scheduled to show up tomorrow morning. They will arrive at our new place on Friday, and then we start the next phase of the process:  unpacking and figuring out where everything goes.

     B drew out a plan of our new place and arranged our furniture on paper. But we have a lot of stuff in storage, and we neglected to measure all that furniture. Plus, we've lost track of what is in our mountain of boxes -- yes, we labeled them, but we keep asking, "Beach pictures? What beach pictures? And what's in that box marked Garage?"

     And we still cannot believe we have so many boxes! We bought boxes at U-Haul. We got others at Home Depot. Our movers gave us some boxes. You just don't realize how much stuff you have until you try to put it all in boxes. So we're doing a lot of guessing, and probably quite a bit of rearranging at some point after we move.

     By the way, if you ever take any advice, take this one piece of advice from me. If you're moving at our age, don't try to do it yourself. The packing itself is enough to produce back pain (we both lie on the floor every night now, doing some back stretching), strain the ankles and knees, raise a few bruises on the arms and shins, and amp up stress levels to megawatt proportions.

     But we can see the finish line. We are exhausted, but also excited. Please, wish us well. Oh, and one more thing. If you want to sleep at night, never move into an apartment located right across the street from a fire station.