I'm (Fake) Moving.

I spent the day on Saturday helping my mom pack and get ready to move.  She's moving out of her apartment and into a townhouse, where she'll be much more comfortable.  It will feel like a house, a home, and we're all hoping she will feel comfortable there as she continues to navigate this chapter of her life.

I moved quite a bit as a kid.  So much so that it's very special to me that I have now lived in my current home for over 15 years.  It's kind of my first REAL home.  Where I feel like I have roots.  At the moment, I have no desire to move.  I wonder about it a lot, wondering if we'd be happier living in town, closer to the kids' friends and grocery stores, with way less upkeep of the house and yard.  Always I am snapped back by the comfort of our privacy, the space we have, and the work we've put in to make this place ours in every way.

But helping someone move makes you think about it.

Moving is a fresh start.  Packing and unpacking is a cleansing time.  I know it's also a ton of work, it can be stressful and exhausting, but I enjoy it.  It's soothing to my obsessive-compulsive quirks.  The sorting, the purging, the cleaning.  And then, best of all, the fresh new place.  Deciding where things go.  Everything is so clean.  Hanging pictures on the new walls, and putting your stuff in the new bathroom.

It makes me want to move.

I don't want to move, really, but I want that process.  I wish it was logical to pack up my whole house as if I was moving, then bring it all out onto the yard.  Completely empty the house.  Then clean it and paint as if I needed to pass an inspection.  And then move back in.

Since that just isn't going to happen--it's bizarrely cold outside, there's lots of snow on the ground, and well, it's just silly--I think I'm going to try it on a smaller scale, but with the same mindset.

Today I'm going to start with a closet or two.  I'm moving out of my main closet and my front closets this week.  Hopefully I will move back in by the end of the week.  I'll take a before picture because I know you all love me through my shame, and post the before and after eventually.  But that's my plan for the day.  Writing about it makes it more of a pledge, so I really will do it.

No, it's not Spring Cleaning, silly.  It's January.  I'm moving out of my closets this week.  I think next week I'll move out of my office.