A lot has been going on these past few weeks, ranging from unfortunate hospital visits to an inordinate amount of personal travel. Yet it seems all this clutter that should be in my head has been cleared, like someone let loose a Roomba in there to keep the tile floors of my mind clear. Everything is clean and tidy up there, except for the large, unvacuumable pile known as moving.
Moving up north is all I think about. Do I have enough coats? What is the general consensus on layering? Am I just applying article upon article of clothing until I feel satisfied? What in God’s name is a radiator, and why do I fear it is going to burn down my apartment building?
We are programmed to fear the unknown, and just about everything about moving to Boston is unknown to me. The only thing I know for sure is I will not be driving. This is something that I cherish, a fact I snuggle up to at night. I liken this whole moving experience to skydiving. For some reason, a few years ago I decided it would be a good idea to pay a large sum of money to jump out of a rickety old Cessna while strapped to another man. I must have been suffering from some sort of temporary brain hemorrhage when I wrote that check. If I began to think about it, a debilitating bolt of pure terror shot down my spine. So the easy solution was to avoid thinking about it. Don’t dwell on all the things that could go wrong, just hope that when you need it, your parachute opens.
I jumped out of the airplane like a raging maniac, and here I am today still standing. This is the same perspective that I am adopting for moving a thousand miles from home. Do petrifying terror pains shoot down my spine now and then? Of course. But deep down I know I am ready to jump, with only the hope that I will land flat on my feet.
Delicious Ambiguity 