Moving days
I moved apartments this weekend.
Here are some thoughts on moving:
- I am the kind of person whose identity is very much wrapped up in his living space, which makes moving exciting but also extremely stressful. It is a chance to change my values, my routines, and the little pieces of day-to-day existence that make up a life! But the actual process of moving is so exhausting. I draw energy from my habits, and being in a place where I can’t reconstruct them easily is draining, whether its the big things like not being able to make myself breakfast because I haven’t put away all my pans or the small things like the cognitive friction in figuring out what lights I need to turn off before going to bed,
- This is also probably why I love travel but also why travel makes me so anxious: the unmooring of it all.
- The first three things I set up in my new apartment, in the following order: WiFi, my dresser, my books.
- The biggest three things I still need to set up: the televisions (I’m a sucker for mounted televisions, and I am getting a professional to mount them this time even though that feels like an admission of defeat), the kitchen, the whiteboards.
- I will miss the semi-rustic (is there a word for halfway between rustic and run-down?) charm of my old apartment, with its claw-foot tub and bay windows, but boy is it nice to have a shower with actual water pressure, to have doorknobs that don’t fall off.
- Every single time I move I underestimate how much stuff I have in my kitchen. I have, like, four sets of coupes. I think I’ve used two of them in the past year.
- Marie Kondo‘s advice would probably be even better if you had to do it a week before a move. The determination of something ‘sparking joy’ is probably a lot easier when the alternative to keeping it is having to schlep it across town.
- I kept most of the coupes, but got rid of some posters. And some sweaters. And a lamp that always felt out of place.
- I’m still in Capitol Hill, closer to the heart of things. I’m farther away from my gym and my grocery, but I’m closer to coffeeshops and my favorite ramen place and a host of other things waiting to be discovered.
- The new apartment is coming along well. It still needs some rugs; I still need to hang a few pieces; I need to decide what I’m doing with my desk, because right now its under the staircase to the loft which gives a distinctly Harry Potter vibe and not in a fun way.
- But it’s starting to feel like a home. The music sounds better here, somehow.
Happy Sunday.
I hope you find a place you can be yourself.