Boxes and Dust and Fedupness

Fedupness... I think I just invented a new word! Although maybe fedupedness would be better... :p

Ugh! I HATE PACKING/MOVING!!! Have spent all week packing an apartment up in boxes... going through tons of stuff, dusting it off, tossing some of it (but not enough since not enough time and some of the junk is the rest of the family's so not my call). Making boxes, filling boxes, closing boxes... all that cardboard and icky tape and dust and my fingers and hands ain't happy! Not to mention my back from the heavy lifting I shouldn't have been doing. AM SO FED UP WITH BOXES!!!

People tell me "Oh, you must be used to moving a lot so it should be easy for you!". If only! The more you've done it, the more you know what's in store, and the more you dread it!

And it's not even a FUN move. As in "cool! I'm going to a new city/county for an exciting new job or educational opportunity!". Nope, I'm just moving in with my parents... (my ego is taking another hit there, although I'm infinitely grateful for my wonderful family). The apartment (with its wonderful view of the Mediterranean) I've been living here in Alicante since I moved back from Belgium a few years ago is an old beach apartment my parents bought back in the early '80s when they had savings and housing was dirt cheap around here. They had always intended to retire in it, but being rather old and small (since its original design intended it to be a holiday beach home) we didn't all fit in when we moved here 15 years ago (we tried... ouch!), so my parents eventually bought another place (10' away) with the money from the sale of the US house and moved out leaving the old place for the daughters and visitors (we get a lot of those living where we do). You might say instead of kicking the kids out of the nest, we did it backwards! lol! Well they're finally able to do a complete overhaul of the old apartment (desperately needed it) so we had to empty it this week and on Monday the walls, floors everything is starting to go. The 3-4 months it will take them to get the work done I'll stay here with my parents (will we survive?) and then they'll move into the "new" old place and enjoy the fabulous Mediterranean views while my sisters and I have use of this place (you can see the a sliver of the Med between 2 buildings, even though it's only a 15' walk away it seems so far!!!) whenever we're in town. Which in my case could be a while. Or not.

I'm not complaining, and yet I am! I've been real lucky to have a place to live rent-free, just worrying about living expenses, and now I don't have to worry about those for 3 months (and my dad's cooking is better than mine, lol!). But I'm going to miss the independence, the view of the blue sea and sky, and the room which has been "mine" for the longest time in my life (that was my room even as a kid when we were here on holidays). And I am so NOT going to enjoy having to deal with the other move in a few months when we have to pull all those boxes out of storage, split them up between the two apartments, and figure out how to fit mine and my sisters' stuff in between what my parents will have left here, making sure it's all decent enough to receive guests whenever they come. My mom's right. My sisters and I need to hurry up and settle down somewhere so she can send us our junk and some of hers! But where? We can't even seem to pick a country! One of us is oscillating around New Zealand, another fluctuating between the US and the UK and I seem to be wandering between Belgium and Spain... We're definitely an odd bunch.

Right now I'm just hoping the skin on my hands and nails will stop hurting soon... where's that moisturising cream? And wondering how I'm going to squeeze my clothes, and thesis stuff, and notes and books for classes into this small room... feels like a live version of Tetris. :s