Moving

Moving sucks.

After several weeks of packing, discarding, and countless trips to the post office, I'm tired, stressed out, and, as far as I can tell, only marginally closer to being out of here than I was a month ago. It's an unimaginable pain in the ass. And I realized recently that I'd lived in this old place – the one I'm leaving to come to Stockholm – longer than in any other dwelling I've occupied in my whole life. So it's not surprising that I've accumulated so much stuff over the years. That realization doesn't make it any easier, though. It's too bad bzip doesn't work in meatspace.

Moving is also interesting because it shows you who your true friends are. If you're lucky, you may have a handful of people in your life who will drop everything to offer an extra set of hands or a ride to storage, because maybe they know that the only people helping you currently are a bit gimpy in one way or another; or an invitation to dinner because they are thoughtful enough to realize you're probably exhausted and have no food in the fridge. Unfortunately, those folks are in the minority; most people, even those you would normally consider friends, don't give a rat's ass when it comes down to it. Rather, they say they do – profess their undying devotion to you, dear friend of friends – but if something even vaguely pressing comes up on their end, they won't think twice about saying, "sorry – can't help you today." Whereas you'd move heaven and earth to bail them out, and have, on multiple occasions.

Of course, you would never "keep score," except to yourself, and you'd only do that to make sure you weren't abusing anyone else's generosity. And it's not the kind of thing you would ask for, or expect, but... somehow I was raised differently than this.

If there's a better justification for being cynical, I don't know what it is.