handle with care

I am packing for my third move in just over five years. I honestly don’t think my skills are improving much. Does this ever get easier?

This move is a pretty big deal for me and I am excited! I’m not going far, but it has taken some hard miles to get to this point. I’m buying the other share of my property, becoming the sole owner. A home and a few acres that I’ve owned a part of since moving to this area as a young wife and mother with big ideas about how life was going to go. I have lived there, loved there, and sang my babies to sleep there. I’ve painted the walls and washed the windows and listened to the prairie wind howl. My new home is not new to me, but I haven't lived there for many years either. Familiar, yet foreign.

I have never spent so many hours awake at 3am as I have in the last few months while coming to terms with this decision. Yet I know it must be done. It’s the next right step and the only clear alternative to the stuckness that is now. It will mark the conclusion of a drawn-out process that at times felt frustrating, exhausting and very unfair. More on that another day. Or not. Maybe what’s done is done and the only thing left to say is, Onward.

Back to the packing. This morning I took down everything that was hanging on the walls and began wrapping it up. I haven’t written much lately. It has felt like a very dry spell and I was quite certain I had run out of things to say. As I stood there with my pile of worn sheets and rolls of packing tape, I was suddenly flooded by thoughts and words and I thanked God that I’m not all dried up yet.

Right there in front of me sat the most perfect metaphor for this stage of my life, just begging to be acknowledged in writing. This irregular shaped item wears a little label I stuck on it to ensure its safe arrival. It is a Very Important Package. It contains some special things that I’m looking forward to putting on the walls in my home. Items that I’ve had for over a decade and intend to have for decades more. Moments in time that deserve to be acknowledged; valuable things for the next section of road. These items are wrapped with love and care, and I did what I could to protect them from the hazards of the upcoming move. This process has at times left me numb, but I felt a wash of emotion as I saw myself in that wrinkled, imperfect little package.

I realized that I too need a sign. A visual cue to myself and those around me that I might be a bit fragile as I embark on another big move in life.

Very Important Person.

She’s not new, and her wrapping is not smooth or fancy, but what’s inside is pretty special and has taken a long time to acquire.

We are going to want her with us at the next stop on this journey, and we need her to get there in one piece.

Handle with care.

LH