Broke Down

Monday was one of the most difficult days of my life. Monday was our pack and load date with our movers for our upcoming move. Watching as our lives were packed into nondescript boxes was an emotional experience, especially when they were packing my son’s belongings. My irrational thought was that the movers were packing our life away. They were packing our son away.

It’s surreal to equate your life, your being, to the possessions in your house and to see those possessions stacked like malformed Tetris blocks in a trailer, tied down and prepared for a cross country trip. I just wanted to get out of the house. I was supposed to stay on the premises the entire time to answer questions, but I couldn’t really take it. While watching movers efficiently box our belongings, I wanted them to take time to appreciate what they were packing. Didn’t they know how important those things were? Those toys and toddler clothes?

They didn’t know. And they shouldn’t know. And they shouldn’t care. They have a job to do and they were doing it. I’m glad they were doing it. I can’t imagine how difficult it would have been on me packing our belongings. Sure, the physical aspect of it would be trying. But the mental aspect of it would be brutal. I nearly lost it a few times while packing clothes into a suite case.

The truth is, I needed those movers. I couldn’t have moved out our stuff and held it together. As a matter of fact, every time I enter that empty house and I see that our belongings are missing, I break down and I cry. I broke down yesterday when doing the final walkthrough. I broke down this morning when running in to grab a few things. I’m going to break down tomorrow when going in to get our luggage prepared for our flight on Thursday. This is not regret for taking a job and moving to California; I’m looking forward to our time out there and to my new job (which I consider one of my dream jobs). This is the pain of leaving our first home. This is the pain of leaving Max’s home. This is the pain of realizing that Max won’t have a memory of that house.