The Last Night: For Real

I don't even know where to begin, so I'll start with the easy part and give a big thank-you shout-out to my friend Jere of the blog Jere-Rigged. Jere came over yesterday morning and helped me out for about four and a half hours, dismantling furniture, carrying bookcases up flights of stairs to neighbors and helping me carry tons of garbage and junk out of the apartment. If it hadn't been for his very generous offer to help out and the great work he did, I would absolutely be having a total nervous breakdown right now.

Packing up this apartment has been far more work than I ever anticipated. I had an idea in my mind about how much I could fit in the van, but today I set up a mock van interior in my living room and it became immediately clear that a LOT of what I was planning on taking was not going to be able to come, especially clothing. Right now I am just embarrassed and ashamed about everything that I will have to throw out; here I thought I'd been proactive in going through my belongings and giving things away, but I had more than I realized.

There's so much on my mind right now but there's still so much left to do. The packing is done, but there's still a lot of cleaning up. Right now I am filled with remorse over all this stuff I have to throw out, and having anxiety over finding a job and a home in Portland and whether the cats will be okay with the car trip -- Rocky's doing much better now, by the way -- and even occasionally whether I have made a colossal error. I hope someday this is all just a funny story I can tell a cute guy over dinner.