I normally overestimate how miserable experiences are going to be, and then I am always pleasantly surprised because it usually doesn't turn out to be as bad as I expected. This is how I maintain my mental health.
But in this case, I vastly underestimated how hard and overwhelming packing up was going to be, so then I was quite miserable. In my mind, I had imagined we could pack everything up in a few hours. But as we filled box after box, there was always more stuff left to be packed. It felt Sisyphean, even although technically we were making progress.
Why hadn't we packed up more in advance, one might ask? One problem was that we had kids and jobs (and someone had to grade 105 handwritten midterm essays), and little free time. Plus, Zac spent a lot of time fixing up the house, which meant I had to watch the kids, which meant no packing got done except a couple boxes each night here and there.
A minor problem was that we had nowhere to put the boxes that we'd packed up. Once I had them stacked in closets and corners, we ran out of space to safely and sanely store them, with the kids running around and us still needing to live in the house.
Another big part of the problem was that all along, it kept seeming like the house deal would fall through. Since the house was a judicial sale, there was a 10-day overbid period after our offer was accepted (where, theoretically, someone willing to pay the required 5% more could take the house from us). Although this scenario was highly unlikely (the house having been on the market for 8 months), just the possibility was very stressful and a deterrent to packing. Then, after the inspection revealed it needed a new roof immediately, we renegotiated the price of the house, which took about a week of back-and-forths and we had to be willing to give up the house if the lawyer selling it called our bluff. Once we finally came to an agreement, that restarted the 10-day overbid process all over again. All of that was incredibly stressful in and of itself, but also took up a great deal of time and energy and made it hard to stay motivated packing for a move that might not actually happen. In fact, as it was, we were going to move into the house before the second overbid period was up (through a lease agreement). It was a mess of a deal, but I'm a stickler for my timelines, and for logistical reasons, we needed to move in this weekend while my parents were here to help and while we were still on winter break, overbid period be damned.
So, thank goodness for my helpful and indefatigable parents. We literally could not have done it without them. My need for hyper-organization combined with decision fatigue and general exhaustion slowed me down, but thankfully my mom was there to just throw stuff in boxes in every spare moment when she wasn't helping with the kids. Somehow, over two nights and one morning, we managed to get most everything packed and loaded.
The kids, thankfully, were oblivious to the amount of stress Zac and I were carrying around, and they enjoyed their very last bath in the 506 Ryan Road tub.
