LIVING THAT NEW LIFE

A new life is more than losing weight and getting a tan.

More than new shoes and low socks.

More than a gold chain and a green neck.

What’s the new life deal this time?

It’s confronting all of your crap after a move with one question: “How did you get here?”

Take an inventory, a rough sort, and find someplace for it all to go.

At least that’s the normal response since it’s better to dump the extras before moving.

Do you remember the last time you moved?

Can you imagine the next time?

Some people move things from one storage nook to another and it never sees the light of day.

Others move empty boxes.

I do it all, empty boxes, empty storage containers with lids that fit.

I’ll be ready, or not, on moving day.

So far I’ve moved from Ohio Street to Tower Street in North Bend, Oregon.

Since then I’ve moved to a college dorm, an Army barracks, three apartments in Philadelphia, a house in Springfield, one in Eugene, a former all-girls Co-op near the UofO campus, a house in Delaware, two apartments in Brooklyn, three apartments in Portland, and two houses in Tigard.

I didn’t have intentional furniture until I got married. That was during my second Portland apartment days.

Until then I just stuffed my clothes into whatever was available and flopped down on a left-behind mattress.

Everything was clean and tidy, just not store bought, custom made, or a family heirloom.

I moved across the country four times with suitcases, backpacks, and book bags.

In reverse order, I took a bus from NYC to Portland, a ride-share from Eugene to Delaware, flew from Philadelphia to North Bend, and flew from Fort Ord, California to Fort Sam Houston, Texas, then winged off to Fort Dix in New Jersey.

I started moving around at nineteen and slowed down at thirty-one.

 

The Theme Furniture Problem

Young couples with time on their hands and a need to prove their expensive education wasn’t a waste of time love to go ‘antiquing.’

Antiquing is what your mom says she did when she got together with her friends to get trashed.

Now you know why your house was full of weird stuff in the seventies.

Mom1: I just looooove that lamp.

Mom2: I’ll buy the other one so we’ll match. Cheers.

Mom3: That small table is tooooo cute.

Mom4: I’ll back the van up.

 

Furniture will not fit in a suitcase no matter how much you want it to fit.

Sure, it came in a box with a million parts and pieces, but you’re not taking it apart again. Are you?

If you can’t avoid furniture, and maybe you’re the nervous type, you’ll worry about scratching, chipping, denting, hitting a wall, marring a floor.

You’ll worry about packing it tight, strapping it down, whether to leave it upright on shaky legs, or lay it down.

 

If you decide to ‘decorate’ based on an era with the appropriate furniture and art, then you’ve got a theme.

A recent winner has been ‘Mid-Century Modern.’

In other words, plastic and chrome and vinyl to recreate the 1950’s without the nuclear war fear, racial segregation, and the desperate lives of suburban women.

The idea that a woman’s most important job was to bear and rear children was hardly a new one, but it began to generate a great deal of dissatisfaction among women who yearned for a more fulfilling life.

(In her 1963 book The Feminine Mystique, women’s rights advocate Betty Friedan argued that the suburbs were “burying women alive.”)

If you ‘entertain’ in mid-century modern, keep an eye out for a PTSD reaction in people who don’t have fond memories.

 

The New Life Move

No one will tell you to strike a match and throw it in the middle of your life’s accumulation, but if you haven’t thought of it once, you’re not really living, or drinking enough antique-wine.

I helped my kid move into a house this weekend. Not a shelter, half-way house, or affordable housing, though I’d help him in any move.

What I did was watch and offer opinions. Sound like fun so far? I also drank all the beer.

Me: Let’s put your bed together.

Me: Let’s put your office together.

Me: Let’s mount your TV set on the wall.

Me: Let’s check your fence.

Me: Did you know . . .

Kid: Okay.

Wife: Who’s hungry?

Me: I’ll hold baby after a few runs up the stairs. Is there any beer left?

 

The pictures in this post come from a sale at the meth-house near me, not my kid.

I could take a picture of my crawl space and every storage nook and cranny in my house and it would look the same as the meth-house.

Maybe I’m setting the bar too low, but if your house starts looking a little too methy, it might be time to reorganize.

The problem is how things look in transition.

Starting a new life won’t require the old shoes you last wore in college.

The jar half-full of old salsa? Nope.

A mother in-law who moves up and down the stairways like she’s been training for the Olympics?

One hundred percent YES.

We made the last big load from the apartment to the house, then dinner.

Is it a fair trade, dinner for moving? I’d move with a suitcase and a book bag across the nation on a Greyhound Bus for dinner like last night.

The best part of it all? Spending days with the kids in a stressful time and watching them navigate like pros.

They do it better than my wife and I.

She and I made a deal recently: I wouldn’t complain about a remodeling project, she wouldn’t complain if I rearranged a few things.

One of us is hedging their bet.

Me: This big black cabinet used to hold the TV on top. Now it’s full of old TV stuff we never use or even look at. It’s getting a new place.

Wife: No, I like it here.

Me: Remember our agreement. We agreed I’d do some rearranging.

Wife: I never agreed to that.

Me: We agreed to a new look, and that’s what we’re getting. A new look for a new life together.

Wife: What’s wrong with our old life?

Me: That’s what I wondered before you started tearing up the house.

Wife: I have a vision.

Me: I know, and the rest of us wear bi-focals. I’m moving stuff around.

Wife: I’ll help.

Me: I’ll ask for help when I need it.

Wife: You never ask for help.

Me: And I’m not asking now.

Wife: Hand me that pillow before it falls on the floor.

Me: I’ll put on the pile of other pillows.

Wife: See? Working together. I’ll help you clean your office.

Me: It’s not dirty.

Wife: Let me show you.