Adeiu. Au Revoir. Fuck it...A lesson in catharsis.
Current mood: hopeful
Category: Life
Tomorrow, I'm finally moving all of my crap out of my apartment in Chicago and into storage. "Camp Swanky," as it was coined by a friend when I moved in, doesn't have very many happy memories assigned to it; rather, it was the setting for many a rock bottom in my life over the past 2 years.
The apartment itself was tits--3 bedrooms, 2 full baths, central AC and heat (trust me, in Chicago, this is a necessity), a huge Jacuzzi, and on two levels...plenty of space for myself and my son.
Unfortunately, Camp Swanky was also home to a feigned quasi suicide attempt, a destructive relationship with another enabling alcoholic and my own eventual alcoholic rock bottom before rehab. It's actually a good thing to be free of a place that harbored so many of my lowest lows in life, all the while considering and applauding how far I've personally come since I resided at the apartment.
What I also learned is that a plentitude of space does not necessarily equate happiness. Having a plethora of "stuff" is, in fact, more stress than it's worth. While I occasionally long for the room to groove on my own which is sorely lacking in the present living arrangement with my mom, I am learning to appreciate the experience. On a day-to-day basis, I essentially have everything here at my mom's that I might need, as does Luke (maybe aside from an extra dose of patience and an extra bathroom).
It's been admittedly refreshing to not have to worry when the Sheriff is going to evict me (lest we forget, my landlord foreclosed on the joint, and the eviction is not at all our fault), and once the extremely busy Eviction Police finally clamp a padlock down on Camp Swanky, my leftover possessions and requisite trash piles will be the bank's problem, not mine.
Briefly, I toyed with the notion of completely pulling up stakes and only moving into storage what I'd already packed, the furniture and material gains be damned. Even at this stage, I'm really only taking what is important or deemed necessary for either practical or emotional reasons, with the rest in "leave here" piles strategically strewn about the apartment.
Reshifting the focus away from "THINGS" and refocusing on Luke and I as "PEOPLE," has been very cathartic, though it's had speckles of anxiety and loss as well, which I'm sure is perfectly normal. Someday Luke and I will have another apartment, and there isn't exactly a lack of stuff in which to decorate, furnish or appoint, for we presently have as much as either of us really needs in life.
I'm also trying to be mindful of the moving experience according to the cognitive behavior therapy in which I take part weekly. For too many months, the daunting task of packing and moving out has loomed heavily in my head, hence procrastinating until the bitter. I'd let Camp Swanky become this metaphorical monster of stress and anxiety, when in reality, it's always been just a bunch of rooms that were filled with my crap.
So tomorrow, movers will take the aforementioned crap and move it into a contained, rented storage facility soon to be full of my crap, and any crap left over is clearly not crap I've needed or thought about any time recently.
By the afternoon, the project will be complete, though I can trudge back there to pack or clean up loose ends until they padlock me out. I haven't yet decided if that will even be necessary.
'Twill be a refreshing load off my shoulders as Camp Swanky is filed into the transoms of my memory and off of my agenda. Stay tuned as my new life unfolds, ya'll, and as John Troast says, "If I'm gonna have to leave it all behind, was it ever really mine?"
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