One box at a time

By: Melanie

Today I packed my first box. In fact, I packed five of them, plus one that is overflowing with stuff to sell. It doesn't sound like much, but it's a dent, and that's something.

My biggest accomplishment today, however, was convincing my darling husband to see to the colossal tower of papers he has been accumulating since approximately May 19, 2009 - the day we moved into our apartment. Everywhere we go, for as long as I have known him, he does this. He just throws papers on tables, dressers, countertops and pretends that they never existed. I then pile them neatly and place them somewhere where he is bound to notice them. He doesn't. I threaten to throw them away. He gets cranky. They continue to pile up. Then at some point I acknowledge that he will not go through them until we move, when I will force him to go through them by any means necessary. I warned him of this impending task a few days ago. He seemed resigned to his fate and didn't offer even the most perfunctory of objections. Today, I announced that the time had come. And do you know what happened? He sat down and did it. It took him about 2 hours (it would have taken me about 15 minutes), but he stayed with it, didn't try to get out of it once, and got the job done. After that he even went through his textbooks for me. I almost want to tell him he's off the hook for the rest of the packing. Almost. I'm grateful, but I'm not crazy.

Once those first few boxes are packed, it really starts to feel like we're moving and the pressure usually spurs me into further action. Five more boxes tomorrow, then the next day, and before we know it it'll be done, right? Does anyone else have this phenomenon happen: It's impossible to start. Where to start? The preparation for the first box takes several days. Then, after that first day of successful packing, several ultra-successful days follow and it looks like you'll be done far ahead of schedule. Then, all of a sudden you're out of boxes and the apartment looks like you haven't started packing yet. Thus begins a painfully long phase of trying desperately to cram each belonging into smaller and smaller bags until it's moving day and you frantically decide that you really don't need the rest of this stuff and it goes on the curb. I'm really hoping to avoid this pattern this time around, what with the early procurement of boxes and supplies, and the organized, methodical nature of my packing scheme. But I'm suspicious that this will end in the same, grizzly manner as the rest of our relocation projects. Only time will tell...and all this speculation is really just procrastination from packing another box. Back at it!