home is not where you live but where they understand you

    Well, I've moved. It wasn't a "get everybody together, rent a truck, move it all, eat a pizza and call it done" sort of thing. It took about six weeks total, was an enormous pain in the ass (as moving always was and will be), required a great deal more help than it should have, and is sort of done but not really--and will have to stay that way, despite my urges to the contrary.
     The goal was to:

1. do the move in a gradual, organized fashion so that it would be as stress-free and non-disruptive as possible, and
2. accomplish this with the assistance of people in my life who were unable/unwilling to help me the last (two) times that I moved.

    That all sort of happened. Well, the first part sort of happened. Elements of the move were gradual and organized. I packed the great majority of my belongings in a very organized way, box by box, shelf by shelf, bird by bird. Everything in a logical grouping, carefully secured, weight evenly distributed. Some of that was even moved in the same way, early on. Then came the hard part.
     I didn't exactly have a place in which to move. It's a long story, into which I will not get at this point. The result is that one major category of my things are in storage at a friends' about an hour north of here. Another major category are in storage at a friends' about a half hour northwest of here. And the rest are with me, temporarily staying with a couple of extraordinary friends, 6 miles north of where I had been living.
     The great painful truth is that, apart from one friend who was able to do a little when she could, literally everyone who stepped up to help me with this move helped me the last time. The same major players were the ones who'd shown up twice in two weeks to bail me out of a disgusting housing-related jam, in fact. I was awed by the generosity and humbled by the friendship that surrounded me in the last month, when I was nearly gagging on the words, "I need help."
     I was also dismayed, hurt, and disgusted by the reverse treatment that I received from some people. I knew that what I was asking was not a given, and I was not taking for granted that the answer would be "yes", ever. But when it was answered affirmatively, I did actually expect that it would be done, that my friend would follow through. Three times, three different people, did not. I can take an honest negative response, even without an explanation, a Hell of a lot better than I can deal with flaking out.
     Still, it was a much less painful experience than it could have been (except the lingering pain in my upper back) and the only moving-related casualty was the loss of my phone charger (GRRR), which I've replaced. I'm happy and comfortable in my new, temporary home, living with people who I love like family. Life is good.

[the title quotation is by Christian Morgenstern]