Slowly, everything appeared to make its way
to a box. It begin on a Monday and by Wednesday, most of the objects in the
house were already in one of the many boxes. As the family had lived there for
so long, there were many, many boxes, which piled up in some corners and then
disappeared through the door, taken away by the men in blue who worked for the
moving company.
In one box it was all about CD’s and music and
movies and others boxes were filled with books. Others held stacks of papers
that were useful or not at all useful. The most precious objects were wrapped
in plastic and then put in their respective box. That plastic was all over the
house, the children having played with it. But, after Wednesday, children
appeared to have been boxed too because they were nowhere to be seen.
Their father had taken them with him in order
to prepare everything in the new home. The idea was for them to arrive before
any of the boxes did and help settle everything on the other side of the world.
The woman, the mom, would stay behind making sure every single object in their
house was properly treated and that nothing was left behind. They decided it
should be her who stayed behind because she was more organized and more
attentive to detail, so she could realize when something was being done wrong
or if something had been left behind or anything like that.
The day her husband and children left, she was
free to cry for a good while in her room. She had loved that room since the
first day there and was heartbroken they had do to leave. It was a silly thing
to be so attached to a place but that’s what humans are like, we form very
tight relationships with inanimate objects, with things that will inevitably
change someday. We make our lives harder that way but we kind of love it. We do
like to suffer over silly things.
After crying like a fool, she decided it was
best to get organized and make the process faster because she didn’t wanted to
be away from her family for a long time. So Thursday morning she made a list of
the boxes that were still in the house and the objects that hadn’t been wrapped
or put away. None of their paintings had been taken care off, as well as some
of the kitchen objects that she used quite often.
It was so difficult to organize because they
had so many things. Not only because they had bought them but they were also
gifts and things that the families passed on. She realized they had things they
hadn’t even seen in a couple of years and that was ridiculous. She had to work
a lot to organize the process and to try for her family in the other side to
have what they needed soon.
The furniture was already there as well as the
big appliances like the fridge and so on, but they didn’t have many of the
basic things like cutlery or the children’s toys in order for them not to get
bored. That hadn’t been planned correctly and the mother had to make it all as
efficient as she could.
By Saturday, the house was practically empty.
There were only couples of boxes left, which were going to travel with her to
the other side of the world. The trip would take her many hours and she would
have to take two planes by herself, which seemed like a very horrible thing to
do by herself. The truth was that she had always been with someone in her life,
whether it was her parents or her husband or a friend or her children. Someone
had always taken her hand when the turbulence hit the plane or when the car
ride was getting too long.
She
had to prepare for that mentally, as she would travel the very next day. On
Saturday afternoon she put the boxes and her suitcases by the door and gave a
last grand tour of her house. They had lived there since they had gotten
married, twenty years earlier. They had seen the house many times from afar so,
when it became available for rent, they launched themselves at it and tried by
all means to be the ones to live there. There were many others interested and
it was a long and annoying process but, at the end, they got the deal.
As she walked through the living room, the
kitchen and the bedrooms, she realized every major event in her life had taken
place there or was connected to the house. Her wedding was only a month prior
to moving and even on that day she dreamt about the house she was going to have
and it was amazing how that house in her mind was similar to the real house she
ended up living in.
The birth of her two children had taken place
while living there, as well as the death of her parents and the engagement of
her brother and many other happy and sad moments. She had organized parties and
had also stayed in on rainy days with her husband and just hugged and watched
movies. She had played with her children, running around as if she was a child
again and she had cried when life threw them a curveball.
Her favorite part of the house was the
backyard, a fairly nice extension of well cut grass that extended some meters
away from the house. It was her favorite place because she loved to read there,
to exercise, to play with her children and even to make love with her husband.
Even if it was a place outside, it fell as a very private part of her world.
She could be herself there and no one would know or care.
On Sunday morning, she had a big breakfast on
one of her favorite restaurants. She wanted to treat herself before leaving the
city she had been living in for so many years, since she had been born. They
had held a party to say goodbye a week earlier but she managed to visit a
couple of very good friends again before living. She stood strong as she talked
to them but when she got home she cried and realized how much her life was
going to change.
She had a couple more hours to spare so she
grabbed the book she was reading at that moment and just laid down in the grass
in the backyard. She put the book away very soon and just looked up, to the sky
and then to the side, to the grass and the fence that separated her home from
the others. She had no choice anymore, she had to go through with it and she
had to try to enjoy the adventure because if she didn’t, being miserable would
take a toll on her.
Her transport arrived just in time. She made
sure she had everything and gave one last look to the house before leaving,
trying not to extend the pain for too long. The boxes were inside the taxi as
well as her suitcases so they left for the airport in seconds. On the way
there, she didn’t say a word. She wasn’t really the kind of person to talk to a
stranger but right then, she wouldn’t have talked to a friend either.
In the airport, she paid for the extra weight
of her luggage and then passed through the emigration area. The man that
checked her passport was very silent and she was thankful for that. He asked
her what was her business in her destination and he told her, choking up a
little, that she was moving there because of her husband’s work. The man nodded
and put on the seal on her passport and let her pass.
She went directly to the assigned door and sat
down, as she felt heavy, she felt a horrible weight on her back that couldn’t
be properly lifted. She wanted to cry and scream but she also knew that wouldn’t
help at all because everything was done, there was no turning back in the
decisions she and her husband had made a while ago. Things were as they were
and they couldn’t be changed.
The boarding procedure begun some minutes
later and she was one of the last passengers to board. Her husband had paid for
business class seats on both her flights, so she could be more relaxed because
he knew her and wanted her to know she didn’t have to be uneasy. As she sat down,
she took a deep breath and thought she was going to see her family very soon.
They were buying a cake to celebrate being together and she was going to adapt
quick, as it always happens.
