20 August 2010

in the end

There are layers of delicious, addicting, chocolate cake on my stovetop, and boxes everywhere, and I'm still not sure if I'll have everything packed up by nine a.m. when people arrive to load my life into a truck and cart it to Universe City. The cake is my anchor right now. I can see progress in it, while the rest of the apartment just seems like chaos. I load a box and then make some frosting, carry out some recycling and cut one layer into two. I am accomplishing something, just maybe not the something I need to accomplish.

"Get some sleep," my momma cautions me, and I mean to, but I'm not sure if it will work, here in this room of box after box surrounded by random papers and rejected bags. I don't know if I can sleep.

I moved here with two suitcases. I am leaving with too many items to count.

"When I was moving," T. said, "I tried to find this comedy sketch. The woman talks about how when you start packing, you are organized and you label things, and then by the end you are throwing things randomly into boxes and yelling, 'I HATE MY STUFF!'"

I hate my stuff. My boxes aren't quite totally random yet, though.

My friend E. moved a month ago, and when we arrived everything was neat and clean and already half loaded in the truck. We were in and out in half an hour. I was awed and inspired, and I'm trying to do that here. I will manage it, I keep telling myself, even if I don't sleep tonight.

I might not sleep tonight, or not much, and that is the worst moment: in the dark, in the night, surrounded by impossible packing, crying with no one to call because the whole world is asleep.

No comments: