You Load One and a Half Tons, Whaddaya Get?

The last week before our departure has been far more challenging than I had anticipated but we were able to overcome each until we reached our current state which is sitting here at SeaTac Airport waiting for our flight.  Last week, we were packing and moving furniture to buyers and others and then the snow came.  Our neighbor postponed our dinner out from Tuesday to Thursday because she doesn't like going out in the cold.  Thursday arrived and we had snow, ice, rain and more ice.  All around us, we could hear tree branches breaking and crashing to the ground.  Our power went out at noon and didn't come back until the next evening around seven.  We kept packing despite getting colder and colder.  Steam was coming out of our mouths and we lost contact with the world.  Still, box by box, we packed what we considered to be important and got rid of the rest.

The storm cut into our schedule so we had to move even faster over the weekend and beyond.  One thing after another went wrong and then one surprise after another came.  We ran out of boxes and tape, we cooked in the fireplace until we had no wood, we bought a butane stove because we had sold the one we had just a week before.  Furniture finally started going out the door on Saturday and Sunday leaving us with less to sit on, less to have to walk around.  In all this, our friends came through.  Thong and Jiem, two lady friends, showed up with food when the roads became passable.  Na and Barry helped us move things to Goodwill, pack the truck and unpack it at the shipper.  Friends and neighbors took us to dinner and, of course, the power came back on.  I gave my box spring to my friend and the mattress to a lady down the street who said she has been out of work and didn't even have a mattress to sleep on.  We gave the refrigerator to the mover with the promise that he would do something equally helpful for someone else.  He had moved us in six months earlier which lead to many conversations. 

All my belongings that I had moved from California to Colorado to Washington went to new homes where perhaps they will cherish them as much as I did.  I feel like the monks and priests who give up all they have for a better cause.  I hope mine is a better one, as well.

Barry and Na came to pick up our car we sold to them last night, our last thing to get rid of.  I told Barry that the weight had come in on our boxes and it was 3,000 pounds or one and a half tons.  If I had moved them myself I would probably be in a hospital.  Barry lifted them like feathers.  Getting them off along with the other belonging lifted a huge weight from me like when I would drop my backpack after several miles of walking.  I feel lighter and ready for my next step.