Thursday, June 01, 2006

Garden to Garden




More than one person has helpfully told me that moving is widely regarded as one of the most stressful of life's major events. Which actually makes me feel a little better about going nuts over the upcoming move.

I have been in my present location for longer than any other place I've ever lived by more than double. Before this seven-year stretch in Carroll Gardens, I had never lived anywhere longer than three years. Now, I'm having to say goodbye to a home that has been a comfort and haven to me. I find myself missing the smell of the place (when trash or kitty litter are not dominant) in advance of the move. I have been packing things into boxes, taking down a comic mural I had done years ago, and thrusting the place into a chaos I realized last night it would never recover from.

It is actually a bit hard for me to accept that already the chance to see the apartment as it has been for my years there has passed me by. Beginning packing didn't seem like a big thing and before I knew it, the apartment didn't look so much like home anymore.

It honestly makes me a little heartsick. I sat on my stoop for a while last night after taking out load after load of junk, soaking up the street that has been mine for so long. The trees, the brownstones and stoops, the quiet.

Kew Gardens will be something new. It's a wonderful neighborhood and a great apartment. But I am going to miss you sorely Carroll Gardens.

4 comments:

La Misma said...

Moving is awful. A friend helped me see why when she said, "You have to confront your past with every item." The decisions about what to keep and what to ditch are agonizing, to me.

As for leaving Carroll Gardens, that is a bitch. It's a gorgeous neighborhood with an unparalleled quiet beauty.

beckett said...

Just as you kick up dust that has lain undisturbed in corners for years, you kick up all sorts of issues that have lain relatively dormant in your psyche.

Today I took the subway to work from the Carroll St. stop for the last time.

Rog said...

Why do you have to move?

beckett said...

SJU, where I'll be attending law school, is just too hard to get to from Carroll Gardens. I wanted to be closer to classes. Plus, Carroll Gardens is turning into the Upper West Side.