Packing Up

When I was born my mom and dad brought me home to a house that I lived in until the day I left for college. A house that I came back to after I graduated from college (for just a short one year visit, mind you) the very same house that Momma Gerri lives in today. We never moved, not across town, much less across the country. I always felt more than a little sorry for the kids who showed up on the first day of school fresh off a moving truck from some distant place where I'm sure they'd left best friends, winning soccer teams and a house they really loved. I was also a little jealous, however, of the adventures these kids must have had and the opportunity they had to reinvent themselves when they landed in a new place. There's a lot of social baggage that comes with growing up with the same set of kids since kindergarten.

So maybe it's the lure of a new adventure that's kept me moving every couple of years since I left college. In the seven years that your dad and I have been together I have moved four times and if my last count is correct, he's moved eight (sometimes just to a new house in the same city). And now, we're introducing you to our semi-nomadic lifestyle. At the age of two an a half months, all your stuff will be packed up in cardboard boxes and U-Hauled to your next home. Strangely enough, back to the house that I grew up in.

It's odd to think that you'll have no memories of your first home, or even the city that's listed on your birth certificate; I so closely identify with my first home and city. When we come back to Washington DC, it will probably always be as tourists. We'll drive through Silver Spring and point out the condo building that housed you for your first two and a half months life life and we'll drive by the DC Birth Center to see the place you took your first breath (let's hope real hard that it will always be there). When you fill out your passport application you will write Washington, DC as your city of birth, but it may not mean much to you at all. Or perhaps, you will be proud to have been born in ournationscapital.

But you'll probably do lots of things I've never done or didn't do quite so young. I hope that moving far away from home isn't one of those things you do for a very, very long time. And when you do, I'd advise you to use professional movers. I swore I would never pack myself again and here I sit in one of our two rooms completely surrounded by boxes on one side. After calling ten different moving companies and exploring every option from a full-service move to a packing pod, we've decided to go-it-alone once again.

A few months ago I was driving out of the condo and down by the trash bins there were a ton of moving boxes. The one furthest to the outside was a large wardrobe box. On the outside of the box, scrawled in black marker, were two words: Chandelier & Cat. I'm afraid that person should have paid the extra money for a professional mover. I can't promise that our move will be fun but I can promise that you and Peanut will not be packed away with the chandeliers.