The Best Laid Plans

Inspirational song: Going to California (Led Zeppelin)

The first time we moved cross country as bright-eyed twenty-somethings with preschooler kids, we hit the highway leading east out of Boulder right around 10 o'clock at night, at least twelve hours past our scheduled departure. That wasn't how we planned it, but nonetheless, that is what happened. It took us forever to empty all of our belongings from our small basement apartment and load them into a Ryder truck. I'm fairly certain that we ended up leaving a few things behind, on purpose, like the first vacuum cleaner I ever owned. The truck was full and we were totally over it and didn't care anymore. It was the first time we did that, but certainly not the last. We've driven away from grills, fire pits, furniture, and most recently three overstuffed dumpsters in the alley behind our house in New Mexico (that's where all city trash pickup occurred in that particular town). Those last few hours, when you're tired, and there's still four or five boxes' worth of random crap spread out over the entire house, are the worst. Just walking back into the house after carrying a box to the truck, to see how much was still there, always made my body release stress hormones in a rush, that spread like a wave of pain over my face and my chest, as if I'd walked through a curtain of hate. As you get closer to the end of a move, tiny inconveniences and undone projects become insurmountable hurdles, and trouble-shooting skills vanish. There's always more to pack, more to load, more to clean. I don't know which is harder, moving out of places you own, or places you rent. I stress out about move-out inspections, convinced that I won't pass them, and I'll lose a damage deposit or not be able to turn in my keys until everything is finished (I really did have to stay an extra day over this once). Leaving the two houses we owned was as big of a nightmare, especially the one we had on the market to sell, that needed to be pristine to show. We ended up renting out both (although we sold the first in time to buy the second). I don't know whether anyone else gets as worked up as I do, just to drive away.

I have been getting regular updates from daughter number one all weekend, as she packs up all her belongings from the condo in Boulder, loads up a rental truck (that we had to persuade her to get--she thought she could just pull a little trailer behind her doomsmobile-style SUV), and follows in her parents' footsteps and abjectly fails to get out of town anywhere close to her schedule. Her plan was to have old college buddies or coworkers or someone help her load the truck, but no one answered the call (except her sister who was able to help with a few big pieces of furniture before she went on her own excursion). So she loaded the truck mostly by herself, discovering how much stuff she actually accumulated in five years of living in a small condo, and watched her deadline to leave get closer and closer, and then farther and farther away in the past. She wanted to be able to attend a family wedding, that was at the perfect halfway point, so she could celebrate with the family one last time before being off on her own in SoCal. She was planning on driving all night, getting a room to clean up and let her animals stretch their legs, and then going to the wedding. When the first plan failed, she was still determined to leave in the morning, and drive like a bat out of hell to her destination, only hoping to arrive with enough time to wash road grime off of her before the ceremony. And then the reception. And then maybe in time to drop off her wedding gift and apologize. Her rental truck was fully loaded this morning, her SUV wheels up on the tow dolly in one shot, and all that was left was to disconnect the drive shaft on the towed vehicle and she and the pets could go. And that's when she realized that the socket wrench and extension tools were packed somewhere under all of that nonsense. And she thought about that lucky break getting the car up in one try. If she pulled it off to go to buy another set of wrenches, she was certain that she would never get it back up on the dolly again, to save her life. So off she walked to the nearest store. New socket wrench and extension acquired, her tribulations had not ended. She spent hours fighting four bolts that absolutely refused to budge. She called me so many times, exasperated. I felt awful that I was here, unable to help, and in my compromised state, unable to think of either a solution or a resource to call. Her entire family was out of state at this wedding. Every time I tried to think of someone to call, the faces that popped up in my brain either didn't still live in Boulder, or never lived there at all. Finally, hotel reservation canceled, she decided it was time for a shower and food, and maybe a nap. She needed to be able to approach it with fresh eyes.

In the time that she rested, her father responded to the bat signal that we threw out. He was able to do what I couldn't, and found someone local to send her way, but not until tomorrow. He tried to play the "I told you so" card with her, like any father would, but I have been firm about not jumping on that bandwagon. There has never been a move that she has taken with her highly mobile family that went off without a hitch. We never leave on time. Not once, not ever. It's not that we don't try, but that we try to do it all ourselves, and invariably things happen. Hell, the last time we left California, my car crapped out its transmission, and we had to stay in a hotel (one room, with two teenagers, five cats and a dog) for three days because we'd already vacated our house (we didn't own that one). If we can't manage a move ourselves, as much practice as we have had at it, I can't expect my baby to pick up a skill she was never taught, and do it perfectly herself on the first try. I just keep telling myself she is learning valuable life lessons now, and all I care about is that she and her three pets arrive safely, whenever that is. Time is relative.