Laura at 3 a.m.: “Okay, we’ll need to be leaving the
apartment by 7 a.m. in order to make sure we are in Frankfort on time.”
The alarm goes off once, twice, three times and I finally
decide to roll over and check the time.
7:35 a.m.
“LAURA! It’s 7:30! We have to get up!”
8 minutes later we’re “dressed” and in the car. An hour and
a half drive took 50 minutes thanks to Laura’s lead foot.
We pull up to the U-Haul place and walk inside the sketchiest
of buildings.
“So, I know you want the 17’ truck, but we don’t have it. I’ll
charge you for the 17’ and let you have the 20’.”
I look at Laura with the most terrified of looks. I have basically negative depth perception and
she’s expecting me to drive a truck this 20’ long without hitting anything or
killing anyone?! I can do this. I am woman. Hear me roar. (Yes, these tend
to be how my personal pep talks go.)
I’ve always been taught to be self-sufficient. Need
something done? Do it yourself. The car is making funny noises? Check it out,
figure it out, take care of it or make a phone call. Outlet not working? Go
check the breaker box. Cut the blue or red wire? Hold your breath and pick one.
So, when Laura says to me “Em, we’ve got to move the stuff
from Mom’s house to my apartment and Jon’s working that day,” my only response
was, “that’s fine. We can handle it ourselves.” And, that’s exactly what we
did.
I managed to drive this giant machine home without hitting
anything. (I like to think the computer games I used to play where the goal was
to park a semi really helped with this.) We got everything packed and ready to
go then Laura, Sarah, and I loaded the truck.
1 cherry bookcase, 1 oak dresser, two beds with bed frames,
a small sofa, desk, patio furniture, rocking chair and a wide variety of boxes and bags filled
this massive truck almost completely.
Now, I may have accidently possibly parked the truck on the
grass which may or may not been extremely wet and mushy because of the rain.
And, this truck may or may not have gotten stuck in this grass and we may or
may not have had to call someone to get it unstuck. Maybe.
When it was time to go, I gleefully pulled the truck out of
the driveway and watched all of the mud fly off the tires as I sped down the
small country road. (By “sped” I mean I finally got the thing up to 40 mph)
Just over an hour later, we made it to Greenwood. One thing
I definitely appreciate about Laura is that she understands my driving signals.
We played leap frog all the way down the interstate. I was so impressed that
she was trying to help me out when it came to merging that I just kept changing
lanes to see if she would follow. She did.
So, we get to the apartment complex and had to park a little
farther away from her apartment than I would have liked. Three hours it took
the two of us to get the majority of the stuff from the truck up to her THIRD
FLOOR apartment. Thankfully, Jonathon was willing to help us get the giant
bookcase, dresser and sofa up the stairs. Our arms are far too short to maneuver
those things by ourselves. (And, Laura is a wimp when it comes to carrying
heavy things.)
As I sit here two days later and try not to move because
every single muscle in my body hurts, I can’t help but think about what all I
accomplished that day. I proved to myself that I really am quite self-sufficient
and that is very important to me. My mom always taught me the importance of
being able to take care of myself and I’ve learned so much from her. She taught
me how to cook, properly clean, sing, decorate, organize, fix a car, be handy
with tools, garden, make important phone calls, plus a million other things
that are important in order to live. Not only can I do all the things a 1950’s
housewife can do, but I can also pack up three rooms of a house, drive a giant
truck without killing anyone and put these three rooms into one apartment. I
feel like I have officially done it all.
Now that I have proved that to myself, I think it is time to
give myself a break. [ 1) because I can’t move and 2) because one person can
only do so much.]
Moral of the story: Always set yourself up for success by
being able to take care of things, but always accept help when it is offered. You
can’t do it all alone.
Smile always,
e.
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