D-Day.
Last weekend was a furious sprint to the finish line. We had a five o'clock Monday deadline, and two main projects: get out of our apartment, and pack for a year (or two) in Europe. Each one of those tasks alone would have been daunting enough for me, but put them together, add a bunch of heavy emotion, and my only way to cope was to shift into high gear and dive into heavy do-mode Sarah.
First, getting out of our apartment. As I've mentioned, I wanted to use this as an opportunity to purge - things un-needed, things un-loved, things under-used. We did really well for the most part - we got rid of piles. Like, big piles. But there was still a lot to go through. Marselle stepped up, deploying her discerning eye, ability to snarl then wince her eyebrows to say "Of course you won't keep that" and confidently conclude by gesturing with her hand that we move on. If insulted, in the end, I was elated, even proud, that my piles kept getting bigger as a result. More thanks to Courtney for making a run to Salvation Army (in the pouring rain) and to Michael, even if curmudgeonly, for taking Dave to grab the rental car. And to many more, who are babysitting our plants, babysitting art, babysitting furniture. Ran errands, offered to help.
Packing for Europe, on the other hand, was - to my surprise - harder. What creature comforts do I want with us? What do we actually need? What will I need to work remotely? What should we re-purchase there to assimilate? It was a hectic tetris of what comes, what stays, and in what bag. Why is packing just so damn hard?
Overall, I'd say we handled the two projects pretty well. No fighting, we stayed within expected size for our storage unit (including the wrapping paper), and we got rid of lots. of. stuff.
But the real challenges had nothing to do with our bags or our boxes. Sunday night, I watched Courtney say goodbye to Truffle. I had been thinking a lot about my goodbyes, but this was a moment for which I absolutely didn't prepare. CB leaned over, in her subtle, barely-detectable-but-is-totally-there southern tone, said genuinely, "Bye girl. We'll miss you." I had considered how Truff would be surprised by the move, how she would miss Hank and Reed and our neighbors that dote on her. But she and Court were roommates. For years, and she was adored. She was cared for. And here is a goodbye moment that so overwhelmed me, and I had no idea it was coming. In that instant I knew there were about to be a hundred more moments packed into the next two days that I overlooked. Moments and places and people that have given me, given us, so much. Moments and places and people that have made me who I am today, and made me and Dave, us.
On Sunday, Dave and I took a break and sat in our living room, looking out into an almost-empty apartment and rattled off our favorite memories from our space. Christmases with Abby, Roz, Greg, Sharon, and John. Fires and, embarrassingly, difficulty starting them. Getting engaged and getting married. Lindsey and Matt brunches, late-night Bi-Rite runs. Take out Kasa, eggs on Saturday, runs through the forest. We could feel the gravitas.
By our deadline on Monday, we looked around and knew that what we were doing was in part possible because of the deep roots we grew in San Francisco. We also knew all along that leaving would be hard. At five (well, six) o'clock, we shed more tears, loaded the car, and drove to SFO.
Standing in the spot where we took our first photo in the apartment, a teary-eyed last moment with bare walls and an empty room right before we drove off.
