A Girl...

i'm guessing you guys are still young whippersnappers compared to my ancient ass, but regarding the 20 car trips and backbreaking weekend of hauling shit down stairs and around corners - when you reach a certain age you'll see the logic in paying movers to do that shit for you. . .

the first time you may feel a bit foolish for paying someone to do something that you could do yourself, but a couple of hours later when everything's done and moved across town with nary a smashed thumb or thrown-out back, you'll think to yourself, "why the fuck didn't i start using movers earlier?"

since i own an suv i'm one of those people who friends ask to help 'em move and every time i tell 'em, "yeah, i'll help. . . get some movers and i'll pay for half". . .

and on a totally unrelated topic, i hear ya on the packrat thing. . . i still have bank statements from when i first opened an account back in high school 'cuz, y'know, even tho' i've never needed a bank statement *ever*, who knows, next week i may need to know how much was in my savings account in february 1998. . .

Totally with you on the not wanting to let go. I even made a mini quicktime movie of my place before I left so I could show my kids what my doona looked like before I became responsible and married and paid more attention to things like thread counts! I still have workbooks from when I was in prep (first year of school) where I was learning how to hand write. Incidentally, I used to spend half an hour on my full stops. They were higher than any of the letters and coloured in solidly in greylead pencil. Go figure. ANYWAY, I put a lot of that stuff in boxes and kept it in the spare room when L and I moved in and figured 2 years later when I hadn't opened the box then that was a sign I could let it go. I still kept lots of sentimental stuff but I mean things like a hideous chinese platter that my ex-boss brought back from one of the gazillion world trips he would take each year, that I really didn't like but appreciated the sentiment and one day maybe I'd make oriental cupcakes and NEED a matching platter. It felt so good to throw that stuff out. I discovered I love to get rid of stuff. I never thought I would be like that. I think its all about the first step! Having said all that, furniture is a whole other issue and I didn't have hardly any so I have no really helpful pointers there except that buying joint furniture with Simon is going to be great fun and you'll forget all about the Ikea table with the water rings eventually :)

First, Stan needs a new home? Did I miss something? Second, letting go is really hard (emotionally), even when you know (logically) that it makes sense. I understand. Hi, my name is Candace and I'm a pack-rat. I've been sober for five years now. Once you start letting go of *things*, it gets easier and easier and now I (almost) throw things out willy-nilly! Okay, I don't. The majority of my cast-offs go to Goodwill or St. Vincent de Paul, broken or not. Clears my conscience and sometimes people can use my crap. Third, we lived with a toddler in a foreign country and it was quite fun. Seriously. Christopher turned two in Germany. Having a toddler around was quite the ice breaker.

And the movers? Yeah, do that if you can.

There's one light, easily packed piece of advice that I hope will help both of you. The sooner you think of each other's stuff as "ours," the better. Sure, there are things each will control and that will always belong to only one person. But don't keep your crap separate. Especially if marriage is a possibility, it won't matter much when you're sharing a home together. Merge it, baby!

Mi crap es su crap, as Spanish-speakers say.

Good luck with your move. I can totally sympathize with all your feelings on the subject. My husband and I never had to do the, one-of-us-must-give-up-their-apartment thing....it just worked out that he finished grad school, moved in with me and my roommates and we moved out together to our own place a year later.
Having done the whole move a little at a time thing....I'm a big advocate of doing in all at once with any friends you can muster. Once you start packing, your old place ceases to feel like the place you loved and becomes the dusty, disoganized place where you can no longer find anything you need anymore. I say, do it like a band-aid! Good luck!

* Into the Woods! The Baker's Wife! "Moments in the Woods!" I get a FRAJILLION GOLD STARS!

P.S. I've been reading for a couple months now and love that you tend to write a lot of what I think but don't have the words or guts to come out and say. Good luck in the move and life change! VERY exciting.

Missy, you just made one hell of a grand entrance. :)

And yes, Lainey, I think you've put your finger on one of my "issues." I'd rather have my place look normal one minute and empty the next instead of having it get ripped apart piece by piecce over days and days so that my last memory of it looks like a tornado hit.

But Lainey and Leah,

What about the horror of 2 days of horrible struggle and sore backs and hurt hands, and add to that the deadline of having to get out because of the lease being up and the owner is bringing in the maids to clean the next morning, so even though it's 11:30 at night, you have NO CHOICE but to make those last two trips?

Moving sucks. I've done it about 15 times, and it's hard, backbreaking work. Add to that the whine factor, and it's a nighmare. If you have the LUXURY of doing it over the course of 2 weeks, it should be done as incrementally as possible.

So there.

Don't even tell me you're equating physical pain to emotional pain. Especially when I'm hormonal.

Did you really have a two bedroom apartment in Berkeley that cost $700/mos?

I am also a total packrat. It's really hard for me to get rid of knick-knacks and napkins and concert fliers that have tiny bits of sentimental value but stay in a box from one place to the next, becoming nothing but another trip to the car on moving day. As I type this, there are a pile of those boxes behind me. Someday I will get rid of them. Someday!

Megan: It's a one-bedroom that was originally rented out at $1150 five years ago. I got the lower price when my fiance moved out and I cried to my landlord, who is the most generous landlord ever. It's hard not to feel lucky when $700 in Berkeley usually means a rat-infested studio with no roof and no toilet.

i'm sad that someone guessed "into the woods" before i got to. as soon as i read the title to this the whole song started running through my head.

There is another angle to think of , and definitely not to rain on your parade, but as the mother of 3, I would prefer to travel with an infant ANY. DAY. OF. THE. WEEK. Infants are portable. They can be slung (oh, the baby slings!), carried in their little infant car seats everywhere, strapped to the front of you, or carried on your back. They fall asleep anywhere, they don't require 2 backpacks full of toys to entertain themselves - they are usually happy with some Cheerios, a spoon, and a set of keys. Toddlers want to walk everywhere by themselves, want to stick their fingers in electric sockets, have the attention span of a flea, and want to be entertained every waking moment. I have great kids - well behaved (between the 3 of them we have have had 2 public tantrums EVER!), low maintenance, easy to amuse, etc. and I still felt this to be true. You know your own personality better, but it was the first thing I thought of when I read your post.

Good luck!!

It would be different if we were talking about traveling, but we're actually talking about LIVING in Chile. For several years. I imagine I'd just want to hole up in an apartment and watch English-language television the whole tim anyway--kids or not--and at least with a toddler I'd have an excuse to get out and see stuff and meet people--play groups and whatnot. Plus, I'd love to have my kid be old enough to pick up some language skills, so there's that...