Silwhoette

I do not know what to do with myself. I want to talk to someone but I do not feel there is anyone I can reach out to right now. I wish there was.

And I am here tap tap tapping on my phone, also with an intensity, but. I am being a bit useless here. I am anxious about it.

Now there are tape sounds. Rapid tape sounds, more rapid than I could ever make. I am not such a brazen taper. He wraps wraps wraps the tape all around the bottom of the box. He has been working hard.

Feel it’s soft roughness. Maybe the scent of sharpie comes to mind. The scent of cardboard too, but the sharpie scent overwhelms.

The sound is very distinct, almost a scratching, but it is lighter and slightly more squeaky. It’s the sort of sound that’s instantly recognizable, could only be one thing. A sharpie writing on cardboard. In a sense you can hear the texture of the cardboard coming through the sound.

My eyes are focused on my screen I hear the sound of the heater running and one of the movers writing a label on a box with a sharpie. The sound is very distinct, almost a scratching, but it is lighter and slightly more squeaky.

What I feel is an aching in my back. A bit of soreness around the eyes. A restlessness of the legs and especially the feet. My feet wiggle wiggle back and forth then my leg goes bounce bounce bounce

Try write. So now I am writing. Writing writing writing tap tap tap on my little phone keyboard with my thumbs but now that I have told the story and reached the present do I have anything left to say? I could say things about the present.

I try reading a Substack post. It is a very interesting and thoughtful essay but I do not have the brain for it right now. I cannot focus on it, cannot absorb what is being said, cannot process it and reflect on it. This is not working. I go back to scroll. No, do not want to scroll.

First I scroll scroll scroll but this is not reducing my anxiety, now I am pulling open other apps for seconds at a time, back and forth between them. Okay, did that for a while, do not want to keep doing that.

My brain is not working well and I am very anxious. I want to sit and fold some origami but I do not want to be observed sitting and folding some origami. I am instead sitting with my phone.

I am tempted to ask them to give me some of their boxes and I will start helping with the packing too. But I am afraid to do this. I am feeling too anxious about interfering with their work.

I have already done a fair amount of going through the stuff. Husband has left me here alone with the two guys. He did not feel necessary and went to go into the office. Now I am just supposed to sit here and supervise or something? Be available for questions?

I do not like this. I do not need all of our stuff. I am not attached to all of our stuff. But I do need some of our stuff, and I am attached to some of our stuff, and now I do not have a chance to go through it because then I would be in their way and slowing them down.

It’s been 7 hours since they started packing. They say they will run out of boxes. They say they will probably have to come back tomorrow with another truck. A few hours ago my husband said this is getting expensive and we should just leave some of our stuff.

Today is moving day. Two guys. The first guy came and surveyed the place, told us right away that we were going to need a loooot more boxes. Is okay, they have more boxes, they will use and charge us for them.

I was reassured. I did not call the company to ask how many guys they were sending.

They might charge you more for the unexpected stuff, but it will all get packed and taken away. If you’re still worried, you could just call them and ask how many guys they are sending. If it’s like, two, then I’d be worried. But anything more than two I’m sure it’ll be fine. They’ll do a good job.

Best friend said something to the effect of, even if he did underestimate, I’m sure the company runs into that sort of situation all the time. I’m sure they have a process for dealing with it.

I did not tell my husband about these worries. I just thanked him for taking care of hiring the movers. I told my best friend about my worries.

When he showed me the contract I got worried that he had far underestimated. I was worried about them showing up with too small a truck and not enough boxes.

Husband hired a moving company to pack up all our stuff and move it to SF. I let him take care of it. I think he just asked Claude which company to use and how many boxes to tell them we’d need.

Feeling anxiety and helplessness. Feel very constrained. Very unpleasant. Not like, so intense awful I’d rather die bad, but like, real not good do not like errrghhhh aughhhh this sucks.

I am going to write right now because fuck it, gotta try things. My brain is not working well. I got maybe 4 hours of sleep?

Moving day.

Went out to run some errands - drop off a return, dispose of some expired prescription meds, get cash.

Decided to sit for a cappuccino at my favorite neighborhood coffee shop one last time.

What if I just.

Stayed here?

Heh.

Ha, since I found out about our impending move and my husband left to go work in SF for a month…

I have either been coping very poorly (considering the about of emotional distress I’ve been in)

or very well (considering the amount of emotional distress I’ve been in)

It's past 11 PM. I should go home. Get back a bit after midnight. Sleep less than 7 hours. Spend the day going through the things in our apartment before the movers come. Pack our bags for the next month plus, as most of our things will be in storage until we find a place to rent long term.

Why do we have so many parts of old electrophloresis machines that we aren't using anymore? Why are there so many old razor blades lying in the most random of places? Whose chocolate is this? And what is this thing supposed to be?

Drawers and drawers and drawers of miscellania. A fun late night's activity is to start pulling open random drawers to see what's there. I have reasonable guesses as to the story behind most of the contents, but not all of them. And even with my reasonable guesses, it's fun to wonder.

It's my last day of employment til I don't know when. I am the last one here.

I am moving across the country later this week. I am unlikely to ever set foot in this room again. I am in the process of removing traces of my presence. Not all of them. Never all of them. A place like this has ghosts.