Oh hey. Yeah, I’m still here. It’s been a while, though, hasn’t it?
Right now I’m listening to a compilation called The Definitive Horror Music Collection - a 60-track collection of horror film scores, largely performed by The City of Prague Philharmonic Orchestra. It’s one of my go-to soundtracks for writing.
In July, which was approximately a thousand years ago, I mentioned that we had a big move coming up. I believe I likened the coming change to an approaching tidal wave building in the distance. I only now understand how accurate that analogy was. Don’t get me wrong though - this has already been an amazing new chapter in our lives.
The summer was one rife with farewells, tidying up loose ends, and preparing ourselves for one of the biggest changes in our life together. The “we” I refer to includes my wife and son but I should note that my folks also came along for the journey. In fact, they facilitated the entire thing, which means they bore the brunt of the stress suffered throughout the process.
We had farewell events held on our behalf, as much as COVID restrictions allowed us to, and made appointments with our friends to say goodbye. The affairs were bittersweet, of course. On the one hand, it was an exciting move that we were very much looking forward to, and it was nice to be able to connect with friends and family who we hadn’t seen in some time. On the other hand, we were leaving them all behind. Laughs were had and tears were shed and, swifter than the wind, moving day was upon us.
I say moving day but, really, it was moving weeks. Again, I have to give my folks huge credit because they travelled across the country to our new home multiple times, bringing loads of our possessions and theirs. The idea was to make as many advance trips as possible, using a big ol’ trailer, to haul as much of our stuff up as possible, so we could avoid paying enormous costs for moving trucks to ship what amounted to three households’ worth of belongings.
The week before we were to leave was busy with last minute arrangements, packing, and a trip to Quebec to pick up a fixture for our new venture. The trip was worth it but sucked up a valuable two days of our time, a week before the move.
It’s safe to say I’ve learned a lot in the month we’ve been here but the most humbling thing was discovering how much shit we accumulate. Annie and I have always been conscious that we have too much stuff but we never really realized how bad it was until this move. Even after sending up two loads of our belongings and taking multiple loads of stuff to the dump, we were left without enough room for all of our things between two trailers and two vehicles! We had to enlist my brother-in-law, to whom I am eternally grateful, to take a truck-full of stuff we couldn't fit to the dump. Eight o’clock at night, our house had officially closed hours ago - meaning we are no longer supposed to be there, and we were sifting through our shit in the driveway, making snap decisions about what to toss and what to try to keep. I threw away a lot of things I thought were important. And, know what? I can’t even remember what 90% of it was. I miss none of it. Ok, perhaps I'm a little sore about an old guitar I had to toss but, honestly, I never played it. And it was in terrible condition. Worthless to all but my paltry sense of nostalgia.
So it was that, humbled, and with still far too much to our name, we set off on our two-day journey to the coast, where we would begin our new life.
More on that next time though - I promise I won’t be gone nearly as long this time. I have a novel to get out early next year and am only just starting to get back into the creative groove of things. Stay tuned for more info on that - sign up for my newsletter if you’d like to receive updates and offers in your inbox. Otherwise, like / follow / share if it pleases you.
Thanks for reading. Thanks for coming along with us. There’s lots to share and I’m excited to do so.
Stay well.