I’m supposed to be packing

but for some reason it’s more difficult than I expected. After all, I am excited for a new place, a new city, a new set of vocational and academic pursuits, and a new outlook on life every morning – one where I don’t hit the snooze button eighteen times… hopefully. The thing is, I never used to be a snooze button person. In college I was a regimented 8-hours-of-sleeper, meaning that I could sleep eight hours at a time, and that was about it. I would just wake up after that. I rarely got [or get] eight hours of sleep, but the point is that I could usually wake up when my alarm went off once, and know that I had to get up, and just do it. The promise of coffee as soon as I could climb out of my jammies and into real people clothes was mostly all I needed. But all of that changed when I got a job I hated going to last summer, and it still didn’t even change back when I traded it for a job I liked instead.

This is something I tell myself to feel better about the future. Through experience, I know that school makes me crazy, alllllllmost literally, as I steadily accumulate more than my share of wild-eyed absent-minded ramblings and obsessive neuroses, and enter into periods of mind-racing insomnia and bi-weekly mental meltdowns. I have certainly enjoyed a year away from these things. But at the same time, I still used to be able to get up on time, and I think it’s because there was always something to get up for—whether it was a friend to see by the mailboxes, or a new song on my ipod for the bike ride to campus, or even a paper to finish and hand in before noon… because as crazy as school makes me, it still makes me feel vital and happy and accomplished and ALIVE and like I am doing what I should be.

So as I procrastinate and procrastinate with the packing up of my Harrisburg year, I think about waking up and sincerely being happy that I am awake, and excited for the day to come. But it’s still slow going. I know it’s a good thing we have going here, and I am very sad to leave it—even if I am mooching here for another month, squatting in a claim shanty corner of Liz’s not-big-enough-for-two bedroom on an army cot, my term here *technically* ended last weekend… I admire the so many people I know who embarked on more solitary exciting journeys after graduation, and I know that I probably would never have survived such a thing. I never trust myself not to be lonely. And I am pretty sure that even if my job/life pursuit was something stellar, I would still be lonely if I wasn’t with my friends.

Yesterday, I biked the entire Green Belt—a 20-mile ring around the city that weaves through some of its more forgotten corners—on a wildly impractical beach cruiser, which is one of those cases of style-over-functionality to which I often fall susceptible. It was the perfect cap to a perfect weekend, and tt was lovely and glorious to be out in the summer with friends, feeling worn out but accomplished and happy by the time we made it back to the river and home. It reminded me again that I’m glad to live here, and glad to have this year. I want to always be this thankful for having laughter every day because I know not everyone has been this lucky. This is why packing has been difficult.

fake plastic trees [in a STUNNING antique ceramic arrangement!]

When we finally found our house to rent [a dream house… a house to make up for all house-hunting missteps and early morning bleary eyes from late night obsessive sessions on craigslist… I may be exaggerating, but it’s pretty great!], I thought that might be it—I might actually be able to focus on life again, devote needed time to friends and family without the lingering suspicion that the perfect apartment was being posted right now and would be gobbled up in seconds if I didn’t check immediately! Right now! Go!

I should have known myself better. Incessant craigslisting has been of course replaced by pervasive daydreaming of the eight million floorplan options for out living room, scouring the internets for the perfect [and perfectly cheap] slipcover for my inherited comfortable-yet-black leather couch, purchasing impressively high thread count sheets, and emailing .jpgs of fabric swatch to my roommates, who don’t care very much about fabric swatch .jpgs.

I know we’re just renting, and I know it’s not long term—and I also know how cheesy I think “nesting” is, and how much I’ve made fun of it in the past… but I can’t help it. I think I allowed myself to get into the mindset of, “This is it. This is game time, design style.” I’ve always been into decorating and crafts and style stuff, but until now it has been dorms and college budgets and charmingly pre-furnished intentional community living spaces. Don’t get me wrong, with the back-to-school season very well nigh in a wildly expensive new urban center, I am still very soundly on a college budget—but that doesn’t mean it’s not time to rip off that sticky tack and put those posters into frames, for heaven’s sake.

As I said, I mildly hate the idea of nesting: “housewifery,” big weekend trips to the Home Depot, china hutches and coordinated napkin rings. I make fun of people on facebook for such things. I’d like to think I’m still more pup than yup, blowing my cash on concert tickets and sushi and shoes instead of wall tapestries. But here I am, reading Better Homes and Gardens in the check-out line and looking at SLIPCOVERS in my FREE TIME… and all it took was a signed lease.

And do you know what would make it all easier? An effing registry, that’s what. Select a pre-packaged design scheme [nouveau-modern-regency?!?], some colors, and throw the whole thing baby and bathwater onto amazon.com for someone else to buy for you. Don’t worry, I know that’s not TECHNICALLY how it works, but I still think I’d feel less like I had to find “perfect” things if they were all part of a big list I put together all at once.

Here’s a question: How comes people who aren’t getting married but who are still moving to new houses can’t have gift registries without looking like huge jerks? Again, don’t worry – I’m not going to create my own gift registry. But maybe this crafting and nesting instinct is all part of a post-post-modern anti-traditional master plan, after all? As in, to hell with husbands and wives, I’m going to have a kickass antique flea market china hutch NOW, and the only china it will display are my skull shot glasses. Man, I’m going to have SUCH an awesome dowry... sure to attract only the finest of suitors and beaus. Bonus!