I’m sure it’s tough getting through a loss but I’m talking (and making a pun) about the bigger inconvenience: changing apartments.
The only thing I hate about apartments more than having roommates, and I do hate having roommates, is moving in and out of them. I know this space isn’t usually used to rant about things but I’m moving for the first time in three years and a lot of bad blood has come back to me.
First of all, the moving process takes forever. It’s way longer than something that some people make out to be a one or two-day process on the first day of a month. I probably wouldn’t even be moving if my new landlord (my apartment was sold to a new owner in May) didn’t decide to increase my rent over 30% or over $500 a month. Factor that in with the fact that I live in Allston, generally considered one of the cheapest places to live in Boston, and I need to find a new place.
Realtors for apartments are mostly useless. Their abilities start and end with can check off “one-bedroom” and click on a neighborhood from a database on a computer and print off a list of 3 apartments, one of which will be trash, the other will have occupants that won’t know we’re coming and the third is nice but has some unforgivable flaws with it: fifth floor, no elevator, laundry mat is 6-blocks down the street on the other side of a landfill of Big Gulp cups and McDonald’s fry holsters. Full fee.
After a few of these useless realtors, I eventually got one that showed me a couple of worthwhile apartments and I’m actually happy with where I’m moving to (Cambridge, for those keeping track). I’m even anxious about it. Which brings me to the next phase of moving: the anticipation.
Once I find a new place to live, I wish I could just teleport all my possessions from one place to another, right then and there. I’ve signed a lease in June and now I have to wait until September 1st to move in? I don’t have the kind of personality that just let’s that happen. Now I have to spend 2 months thinking about moving. Not even doing anything, just thinking. Thinking about when I have to transfer cable service, thinking about when I have to fill out my change-of-address form with the Post Office, thinking about how much stuff I have to throw out to fit everything into a moving truck, hoping that I can get a moving truck, thinking about how I have to move out on August 31st but can’t get into my new place until September 1st like some cruel paradox and thinking about how September 1st is already the worst move-in day to have in Boston but that this year it’s compounded by the fact that it’s also the first weekend in September. So much to think about. My poor brain.
Phase 3 (how many phases can there be?!?) is packing. Sometimes I think own too much stuff, and maybe I do, but I don’t own that many outrageous things. I mean sure I own a wooden catfish pun but that kind of crap doesn’t take up that much space. Still, it’s over a week-long process between throwing stuff out and packing the things I want to keep. I constantly wonder how that is even possible but I move in four days and I feel like at best, half of my stuff is packed up and ready to go. I wish I could just throw everything out and start over but I own things like a computer and a bed and a TV and a Wii U with Pikmin 3 on it. These aren’t things that should just be repurchased every time I move. I did manage to give some crap away to people I know and donate a kitchen table set to the Salvation Army. Though, even they wouldn’t take my futon, supposedly because of a stain but since when did they get so preachy about quality? I mean, salvation, right?
All this distress and the actually moving out and then in hasn’t even happened yet! I’ll be a whole different kind of mess over the weekend. Have fun at your cookouts!
