Moving On

...I woke up Monday morning feeling so good about not having to go to work anymore. Now my full-time job was to prepare for the big move. Not that I hadn't started preliminary research already on cross country moving services and auto shipping companies but there were so many things that had to be revised, changed, updated etc. when moving to a new state. I had to get new health insurance, new car insurance notify the mortgage company and homeowners insurance that I was going to be renting out my condo. The list was long and when I would happily cross something off I thought of more to add on. I confessed to this before that I am extremely organized not only as a result of my OCD but as part of being under the Virgo sign on the astrological calendar. Look up the definition in the dictionary and it's me. I love lists and order and everything has to be done a certain way, when this doesn't happen it admittedly gets ugly. I describe it as being in my own private hell.

There was a lot I wanted to accomplish the first week out before my move date because the second week I not only had my Fall semester speech at Penn on Monday but on Wednesday the camera/production crew from Make Believe Media will be at my house for an entire day to film me for the documentary episode of Very Bad Men. On top of all this I was making plans to individually see all my friends plus my cousin in NYC before I left for LA. My mom had done a huge BBQ with everyone in August but I wanted to visit with everyone separately instead of a group setting. Some of my girls also have kids and I wanted to see them too. Just so you know a month wasn't enough time! I set a routine of getting up each day, going to the gym then coming home and packing, make phone calls. The days were endlessly busy and exhausting.

Since the Summer I had started to go through my closets and cabinets and pull anything out I was never going to use or wear again and box it up for donations to the Vietnam Veterans. They have always been my go to and were getting a lot of items as a result of my move. I had also been sending anything I could fit into small boxes to Steve who was piling them up in the 2nd bedroom of his apartment soon to be our apartment. This would give me a head start on unpacking when I arrived as the moving company would take up to 21 days to arrive with the big stuff. At the moment that 2nd bedroom was a waste of space and full of, for lack of a better word, Steve's Junk. The room had a bright future ahead as my office/dressing room and future guest room for East coast visitors. I had plans for new window blinds and a cheery coat of paint for what had been a pathetic looking space. To this day almost a year later Steve likes to tease me about having my own room but he knows all the work I did to the room and around the rest of the apartment made it our home.


Sunday would be my final volunteer event with Make-A-Wish NJ. It was the annual Walk for Wishes fundraiser and somehow appropriate to finish my 3 years with the same event when I began volunteering for them. I had participated in a lot of wishes, was a hostess for the grand opening of the Make-A-Wish Castle, their new NJ headquarters, 2 years earlier and other fundraisers. I had gotten to know the staff very well and worked alongside many other volunteers to grant wishes. It would be the perfect time to say thank you for the opportunity to be a volunteer and say good bye. They would never know how pivotal the organization was in turning a corner in my life personally after having been through so much turmoil and trauma. It was yet another step forward in that all important albeit long healing process. I had a great day with everyone including the children and families who attended and walked to raise money for future wishes. It was an emotional farewell as I walked away in tears.

This was another milestone in the process of my move and I left that day to relax and watch football at my brother's house as I had done for so many years and got myself mentally ready for what lay ahead in Week 2...