I Am So That Guy.

Boyfriend and I opened a storage unit for my mom and I and we made the 85-mile trip with our first load tonight. There were several things that could have gone differently.

First, I had to be up at 4:00 this morning and needed a nap after work. I napped until almost 4:00.

Second, nothing had been loaded into the truck while I was napping and it took more than two hours to get everything on-board.

Third, we were transporting the bearded dragon to my sister's house and lizards need lots of heat. I do not do well with high temperatures (with the MS my vision goes all wonky and lots of other things just get worse) and for most of the trip I could not turn on the air conditioning. It was a toasty day, at least 85 degrees and muggy as all get out (humidity is almost as bad as heat). I finally told my brother that the lizard wouldn't die if she was cold for a little bit but that he might die if I couldn't see while driving. That shut him up.

Fourth, when I plugged the address for the Pub1ic 5torage into my GPS, it directed me to a different location. The correct place was two blocks away.

Fifth, we got to the storage place with only 30 minutes before we would be stuck for the night, and the P5 locks were still on the roll-down door and the office had closed two and a half hours earlier.

I called Boyfriend to see if he had any ideas, but he didn't know what to do. He ended up calling the P5 property manager (one of his friends) and asking for a big favor. The property manager came down specifically to remove the locks. I am now forever in his debt.

Anyway, it's 11:00 and we've been working on the moving for five hours and I've been awake for 19 hours. We're at Sister's house and I'm thinking I'll just crash for the night.

I still don't have much done in the way of packing my own shit, but I figure the three days I have left should be enough. Here's hoping!

More of the Same

Since my episode last week I've been doing a pretty good job with the whole not-getting-hysterical thing. Of course, this is mostly because I avoid talking about the move and whenever someone at work says they're going to miss me I shrug it off and change the subject.

Today I had a customer who is a friend of my grandparents and who has known me since I was a toddler. She is said how much she's going to miss me and she just didn't stop when I tried to not talk about it. Of course, this made me cry. The next customer provided some much-appreciated comic relief by saying, 'I know; it's all my fault. I'll try to be better about it next time.' It made me laugh, but I still don't feel any better about leaving and about not being able to say anything to the first woman. A coworker told me that she's really going to miss me and I just couldn't say anything to her. I know that I've helped her a lot in the past and that she comes to me if she's got something she doesn't know how to handle. That means a lot to me and I feel bad because i can't tell her how much I'm going to miss her too.

Mixed feelings

I had a major meltdown at work the other day as the reality of moving crashed down on me. I had been pretty good about not really saying anything, and then I went and told someone that we were having a moving sale and there would be 23 years of stuff to get rid of. The MS has caused major problems in the part of my brain that controls emotions and the meltdown quickly escalated to something nuclear. It didn't help that people kept asking if I was alright.

I have since become more adjusted to the idea, but it still wrenches me in all sorts of different directions; I am not at all concerned about the idea of moving out of our junk pile, but it scares me that I will not really have anywhere to go anymore if things go down the tubes.

I'm almost 28 years old--why can't I throw my security blanket in the trash where it belongs?

Fresh Start

Since I was 4 years old my mom has lived in the same house and I've spent the majority of the last 24 years in that house with her. A couple of years ago she was crossing the parking lot at work and slipped on the extremely treacherous and icy pavement and tore her ACL. She has had surgery to rebuild her knee and is able to go back to work, but work in a small town is pretty scarce and money has been tight. We received an eviction notice a couple of weeks ago and have until June 6 to vacate the premises.

My mom's attitude about this is that it is a good thing; She has wanted to move for a long time but the idea is pretty daunting and this has given her a much needed shove in the right direction. I agree that this will be a good change in the long run, but it has trashed my sense of security.

Our fifteen-year-old cockatiel and at least one of our three kitties will have to be put in foster care until my mom can find work and an apartment. My mom will be splitting her time between my two sisters. The first sister is more than happy to have her but has little space; With four cats of questionable health (my sister is a bleeding-heart animal lover and would probably gladly take the third cat for awhile, but her own cats being sick keeps my mother from asking) and two active toddlers in the two-bedroom apartment, my mom will sleep on an air mattress in the living room. My other sister is glad to offer her extra bedroom to mom and the bearded dragon and would happily house our third cat (one of her two cats is from the same litter and her other cat is questionably-but-unquestionably the half-sister of the first two), but her boyfriend is not crazy about the idea of mom living with them and will absolutely not allow our cat to move in. My teenage sister who lives with my mom and me will be going to stay with her grandma for the summer so she can keep her job and spend time with her boyfriend; Grandma does not do pets. I am going to be taking the first cat to stay with me at my boyfriend's house, and my brother is going to take the second cat to live with him and his dad.

I think that the scariest part of all of this is that we are all going to be split up. The plan is to reunite when stable housing has been acquired, but it doesn't seem realistic to me. I am an adult woman; why is it so hard for me to talk about this and not cry when I realize that nothing will ever be the same?