These days I’m running around trying to box up my life and stash it in various places: my trusty car Bertha bequeathed to Krissy, my job to another friend*, my cat on loan to a German grad student. The last part is stressing me out quite a bit more than the rest – what if, Molasses forbid, something happened to the furbag while I was gone? His brother-cat passed away earlier this year. Despite being portly, he is in good health, so I’m trying not to worry about that, and instead, have preoccupied myself by running around town looking for a piece of furniture in which to hide his poop-receptacle in German grad student’s tiny apartment. I eventually settled on cutting a door into this trunk which I picked up on sale. It took me several stores and multiple visits to Target to settle on this, because it is of the utmost importance that my cat poops in comfort.
Otherwise, I haven’t really been great about prioritizing the things I maybe sort of need to do, like: call my car insurance company to figure out why they’re not entirely covering what they said they’d cover (bastards!), sneak in doctor-dentist-optometrist visits, cancel my gym membership, pay my massive library fines, oh, and pack. Though these things invariably percolate inside my brain and make it hurt a little, I’m generally taking this moving process with equanimity, even though there are many stressing factors on top of that, such as: Eli has not yet found a job. And oh my gawd I have to teach bored middle schoolers in a foreign country where I don’t speak the language. Still, these things are fine, I’ll wing it when I get there, right?
No, the only time I really stress out is when people inquire about my progress. A TA wandered in briefly between classes yesterday to chat. “Do you know when you’re leaving?” she asked, innocently enough.
“Yes, next Wednesday,” said I.
Her eyes bugged out to cartoon anime proportions. “OH my GOD! That’s really soon? Are you packed yet? What are you going to do with ALL your STUFF? Do you have a replacement for your job yet? How are you going to get everything DONE?!”
Now this sort of contagious anxiety is helpful when, say, Tim Gunn does it on Project Runway, and to a designer who has like five minutes before judging starts and all they’ve got is a piece of rope and some M&Ms. NOT SO MUCH TO ME.
Back, I say! I’ll get it done in the nick of time, like I always do. Sheesh.
* just in case HR is reading this and deduces who I am through Internet trickery, she was the most qualified out of all the applicants. definitely heads and shoulders above me!
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