Within the Montage; in the process of pushing through

Think of a movie montage wherein the character is working against odds to achieve a difficult/impossible goal. One of my favorite examples is Legally Blonde because there are a few montages in there; the one where she works her butt off to get into law school and then another one where she works her butt off to prove she belongs there.  (There may be another one, it’s been a minute.) At least one of the montages is set to “Watch Me Shine” by Joanna Pacitti. All montages have a power song. Why do movies do montages?

Because putting in the hard work is tedious and no one wants to sit there and watch the character experience it.  The montage allows you to appreciate their effort and empathize with everything they’ve done to earn their ending achievement without having to actually endure the slog alongside them.  You get the fun bits and you still get to escape!

This is just our food. This is just food. Also, this is the first time I was like, hey, they left us this wheely thing so that I don’t have to break my back and fingers hauling this stuff to the car. And yes, I did tip all of the food over into our new yard.

I had started an entry about how rough the past few weeks have been. I’m moving, currently living in between two places and I’m undergoing a lot of transitions at a couple of different jobs.  Basically, there is no physical place that I exist right now that isn’t a complete mess. That, in of itself, adds stress onto the already trying effort of just sorting out the messes. (I also do my own taxes and they are also worse than ever, but I digress.)  I had started detailing the challenges of each individual aspect of current life and then stopped after a couple of pages. (Pages.) This is why they do montages. No one wants to experience this entire slog with you.

I know that everything will get done and that we’ll come out on the other side of this pleased with the effort that we’ve put in and hopefully laughing at some of the pitfalls. (Although I can’t imaging laughing at the money Piedmont gas has caused us to hemorrhage.) I’m trying to recognize where the universe is giving me little breaks that help me deal, because they are there when I look. I’m trying to examine my reactions when I get overwhelmed and pull myself into the moment or the big picture, whichever it is I’m losing sight of at the time.  By and large, I’ve been successful.

Every evening, I have gone to bed completely exhausted.  And I am getting to bed on time for the most part. I haven’t been able to bike to work, I’ve mainly been doing easy runs, other than squatting and deadlifting my possessions every day, the only additional taxation has been mental.  I couldn’t figure it out, yes, I’m operating with little to no downtime, but the level of exhaustion still seemed odd.

I had a nightmare this week where I was trying to move out of our current place.  I was packing things up and everything was a mess, similar to how it currently is. Some man was assessing the state of the apartment while I was trying to pack and claiming that I had damaged parts of the kitchen that I had not.  While I was arguing with this person, someone opened my door with a key, but I had the chain on. They were reaching their arm through, trying to undo the chain when I started running at the door, yelling, “who the hell are you?!?!” and they retreated. I demanded to know why someone else had a key when I was still legally a resident.  The man going over my apartment waved it off with ‘a lot of people have keys’ and continued to tell me that I hadn’t marked a mismatched counter top on my intake. I told him that this intake wasn’t correct because I had originally moved into THAT building. I pointed out the window.

That’s our unit. The one with all the ladders on it. I admit, I was kind of hoping to be gone before they got to it.

As I pointed out my porch window, you could view the original building that we had moved into. It was being rehabbed.  It was Salvador Dali-like in its construction. The edifice itself was protruding out over a grassy valley that fell impossibly far below it, with only spindly beams supporting the building from the ground. If you’ve ever seen the Temptation of St. Anthony, you’ll get an idea of what I’m talking about. Bits of roof and other debris were being cast off by workers and they floated gently down into the valley. I was explaining to the man that this was the place I had moved into and filled out an intake for, and thus I couldn’t be held responsible for the current place that I had been shoved into ad hoc.  At some point after this, the dream faded into ether and I woke up.

Tuesday evening, frustrated with speaking to and waiting for several service people at the new place, getting charged for things that were incorrect due to incompetence on the other side, constantly hauling loads over there (because if I have the car, then it needs to be full), and going to different jobs and then finally coming back to the old place, I asked Dean when we could just start staying at the new place.  

Although Dean has been working incredibly long days recently (12 hours or so) and has not been able to help much with the move, he has been very supportive. Even telling me on Tuesday, when I was having incredible difficult dragging myself out of bed, to maybe take the day off of actually moving stuff (which I really appreciated, but did not do). 

That night, he took a look at me, told me that he would pack a duffel bag of work clothes that night, switch the internet over in the morning (which of course, didn’t go smoothly, Comcast is going to have to send someone out and charge us), and if I would bring over the food and his duffel bag, we could start staying at the new place Wednesday night.

I almost killed myself getting it done (and yes, a crate of our food did pitch over in the middle of the lawn as all of the kids were walking home from school) but I got our essentials and Jake moved over to the new place.  Although I had been non-stop the entire day and probably didn’t eat enough, for the first time I didn’t go to bed completely exhausted.

My Facebook memories have been reminding me that I was in the middle of a move this time last year.  And also, that move was done in stages. Again, I was in the middle of a huge employment transition at that time (obviously).  I was excited about the move, something I had been working toward for years. Similarly, I have wanted a house with a yard for years. This dream is becoming realized. Another parallel; me setting up the new place largely on my own while Dean works elsewhere. What will NOT happen (it will not, it will NOT) this time is having to move again right after getting settled because of a fire.

There have been a lot of days where I have just wanted to join Jake under the covers.

They’ve finally started working on rebuilding that place in the last two months.  We cannot look out of our windows without seeing workmen crawling all over it and throwing bits of roof and other detritus down onto the ground.  I think I am only just starting to realize that the constant visual reminder, in combination with the process of moving and the time of year, are triggering some kind of low grade alert status in my body.  I do not feel safe in the old place. I’m trying to be okay with this and not beat myself up over it.

I keep thinking of all the things I’ve been neglecting and then reminding myself to just get through this patch first.  One can only tackle so much effectively at one time.  I also thought about what a good foil Dean is for me in this respect. My natural reaction to stress is to get things done, put my head down and plow through.  On Wednesday night, I told him that I was going to go to the old place for at least one load the following day, but that I didn’t know how many trips that I would be up for.  He said, “if all you’re up for tomorrow is hanging around here and taking five naps, I’m totally okay with that.” I will not take five naps in a day, but it’s nice to have a moderate voice nearby letting me know that it’s okay to take a breath.