This is a photo of the apartment that I’ve just moved out of, back when I had just moved in and went on a plastering-slash-painting rampage, one week after dislocating my shoulder for the fifth (and thankfully, last time). While the photo is now four years old, I feel that it perfectly encapsulates pre and post-moving day syndrome.

I get tired just looking at it.

We’ve all been through it at some point – you’ve spent the last several weeks organizing, emailing, calling, visiting, meeting landlords, future and previous tenants, exchanging keys, scheduling, rescheduling, cancelling, reactivating, booking, renting, selling, packing, and orchestrating all the logistics of moving the contents of one apartment to another, all while your bank account haemorrhages from all the inevitable (and surprise! we want more money from you!) expenses that rear their ugly head right around move time. You’re happy to be leaving your current apartment, but your sense of space and belonging is temporarily in limbo as you sink into your new surroundings – the neighbourhood, the people, the commute, the way the new apartment smells like someone else, an unfamiliar space that is now monopolized by dingy cardboard boxes that have taken up residency over every square inch of the floor. All of it feels alien. And exhausting. And endless.

At least for now.

I still feel as though my brain is packed away in one of the unmarked boxes in the far corner of the room. I’m also still trying to come to terms with how small the new fridge is and the fact that there are no drawers in the kitchen, leaving me to keep all the utensils in the box they were packed in. On the floor. Because that’s where everything else seems to be.

So, until I find my brain and my bearings (and regain at-home Internet service), I’ll be over here riding out this ultra-wholesome diet of pizza, chips and take-out.

Be back soon. x