Moving - Being Homeless

Homeless - sort of....... I, of course, am not really homeless. I have a nice place to live in Duncan BC. Within a week the floors there will be all done, the windows will have new moldings and other bits and pieces will be done to make the place quite functional. But I am not there and I won't be there for another few weeks. In the meantime almost all of my possessions are in some sort of trucker limbo as they sit in a depot waiting for other stuff to make a full truck load.

It was a strange feeling watching my stuff being taken away by strangers. They were nice strangers - the three of them worked hard and efficiently. Other than a few comments about how I had more stuff than I had estimated, they were gracious and kind. They were very careful about my furniture as they wrapped up everything. I kept on saying that a few more scratches on my two dining room chairs that we bought 35-40 years at an auction or a few more dings on lamps equally as old would not matter but they insisted that every bit of furniture needed to be protected.

I was worried about some of the boxes and totes being too heavy. I need not have. For the most part they carried two, three and even sometimes four boxes at a time. One of the guys in particular had an unusual technique for carrying the boxes. He stacked up a few boxes and then turned his back to the pile, reached behind, grabbed the lowest box and walked away. In other words he was carrying them on his back as opposed to carrying them on his front - which makes sense as I can carry far more weight in my backpack than I can in my arms in front of me. Certainly carrying boxes that way would save back pain.

There were three movers....which was unusual but when I mentioned this to the driver he said it was because he had had a quad bypass just nine weeks ago and needed to be careful. His doctor had not yet cleared him to go back to work. He made sure that everything was given a sticker with a number on it and that number was recorded on a sheet with a description of the item. He did carry some boxes but we all nagged at him when he tried to do too much. One guy stayed in the truck. Hs job was to stack the stuff. I won't know until the other end and see if anything got broken if he did a good job or not - but he clearly knew what he was doing. The third guy did most of the carrying ( although I did move some of the lighter stuff). He was not very big but he certainly had a lot of energy and was surprisingly strong.

The movers left, I swept the floors, made a run to the recycling centre, came back and loaded up my car, some neighbours said good bye, (they also gave me some shortbread for my trip),  and I was off.

After all my work in the past month or so getting ready - three hours of loading a truck and it was if I had never been there. One of my neighbours said a few weeks ago that the street won't be the same if I am not there. I think she was just being nice. But I was a renter for five or so years which is longer than most, I did do a lot of walking so even if we didn't talk people saw me up and about, and at least once of year some of them visited me when I had a sale.

But now I don't live there - I don't live anywhere.................