If you’ve been following my blog at all, you know a couple things: 1) I just came full circle back to the place I always wanted to be to start my dream job, and (2) in order to do that, I moved into my 41^st home.

I want to make that clear because I need everyone reading this to recognize that I am no stranger to moving. On the contrary, you could call me a “professional mover”. I do not move without the knowledge that there will be a certain level of stress and a number of setbacks that occur, unexpected costs will arise, and grief will arrive out of nowhere as the transition is made. So, it is not lightly that I say that this move has been, by far, the worst experience of my entire life. For the past three and a half weeks, I have been living the Murphy’s Law of moves and I’m not sure if that’s something I should write out or bullet-list at this point. It’s almost reached a comical point because the alternative is to have a complete mental breakdown and ain’t nobody got time for that.

It began when all of my moving help backed out. The timeline was tight. I wasn’t allowed to move in until the 5^th, but my new hire orientation was on the 6^th and the truck was due back on the 5^th so it couldn’t wait. I was fortunate that one of my friends was able to take the day off, so her and I made it happen. Not gonna lie, by the end of that day I felt like a total badass. I lifted some heavy shit. (That’s what I get for finally buying big-kid furniture last year). Anyway, we get to the new place, and it isn’t ready. Not only is it not ready, it’s trashed- like, unlivable trashed. So much so, all of my stuff couldn’t go into the house because I had to wait for people to come take care of the disaster. That leaves us with the option to put the remaining things in the garage. However, the garage door doesn’t lock, so I had to tie it to my couch. Yep, I tied the garage door shut to my couch. There are no words…

I commute an hour down the next morning for work and am told that my house is now ready. (Not to my standards, but livable so whatever). Awesome. So, Saturday morning I move the couch in and get to work setting things up. Go to hook up the dryer- the plug isn’t compatible. I go to get a new plug so I can switch them out, but while switching them out, I dropped a screw down the back. Went to get a replacement- no one had one. So, I ordered one and had to wait a week to get it. Keep in mind that the dryer is in my kitchen, so I can’t do anything with my kitchen until the dryer is set up because I need to put pantry shelves in.

In the meantime, I go to set up my internet. I quickly realize that the entire house doesn’t have an ethernet port. I’m told that’s fine, and I continue to work to set it up. After many failed attempts it’s clear that it isn’t going to happen, and I’ll have to have a tech come out. But of course, they can’t come during a normal, working person’s hours, they only come during the most inconvenient time of the day given to you in a multi-hour range. I’m in my new-hire stuff; I can’t take off! Luckily, my gracious mom offered to come down and sit and wait through the hours to be here when they came. He came, and 3 hours later left after letting me know what a complete cluster of a mess it was in there and that it all had to be completely re-done. But hallelujah I have internet!

A few days later the piece for my dryer finally shows up…it doesn’t fit. So, the hunt continued until I finally got the piece. I get the dryer hooked up and the pantry shelves in and everything starts moving forward. Please note that through all of this, I’m still keeping my garage locked by jamming a screwdriver in it because my property managers still haven’t made it out to fix it. Also, I had a jungle growing all around me that I had been promised would be taken care of before I moved in. That would take another week and a half to get done. The garage door took another week after they cancelled the initial order under the promise made by the last tenant that he would return the key. Surprise, surprise that didn’t happen.

Outside of these big issues:

• I can’t turn on the sink without spraying water all over the kitchen.
• The outlet by the stove doesn’t work which I found out when I tried to plug in the first microwave I’ve had to buy in probably 20 years because this place didn’t have one.
• There are gouges in the floors and the countertops.
• The medicine cabinet door was glued shut by god knows what.
• I found pieces of carpet on the upper shelf in my closet (please someone tell me how that is a thing!)
• Pieces of the other bedroom closet shelf came down on me when I reached up to put something on it
• One of the pictures I put up jumped off the wall and cracked the toilet seat, barely missing my head
• Found rocks and screws in my new carpet (thanks a bunch for the awesome clean up job)
• Went to park in the garage and the recycling bin got wedged and busted a hole through the wall
• Bought a hose and sprinkler so I can water this dead disaster of a lawn, but as I’m hooking it up it turns out a critical piece is missing that has to be ordered. Cause why wouldn’t it be?
• Sunday, I finally decided to do a “quick load of laundry” in my less-than-a-year-old washing machine. An hour later I’m trying to figure out why my clothes aren’t done- it was leaking. I checked everywhere and it turned out the washing machine wasn’t leaking from the hoses; it was overfilling because the sensor wasn’t tripping, and it was stuck in the rinse cycle. After another hour, I finally got all the water out and rescued my clothes, but had no dryer because when I pulled the dryer out to check the washer hoses- the vent hose popped off and won’t go back on, so I have to buy a new one. I ended the evening with clothes strung all around my kitchen to dry. Perfect way to end the weekend. Good times. And all day today I’ve been getting hung up on by the system created to help me get someone to fix it. Perfect.
• And this morning I woke up to my ceiling fan shorting out, turning itself off and back on. The saga continues…

I would like to say this was everything, but it’s not. It’s been an unending stream of utter nonsense since the day I tried to move in. And all of this while also starting a new job in a new place, learning new content that I’ve never taught before in a set of systems I’m completely unfamiliar with, and trying not to lose my mind. Needless to say, I’ve had better.

But I can’t end there because if you know me at all you know that I am always looking for the lesson in things. I truly believe that things are always working in my favor, at least I come back to that point after a brief interlude of insanity, and so when something like this goes on for so long, I have to wonder what it is that I’m supposed to be learning. (I also wonder how thick my skull must be that it’s clearly taking me way longer to figure it out than I’d like to admit or that should be necessary).

What I’ve landed on are a couple solid ideas. Mostly- I think it was to force me to open myself up to people. I very easily close off, especially in new situations. It takes a while for people to get to know me because I don’t let them in quickly or easily. This made that impossible. I had to ask for help so many times, and that is extremely difficult for me. I didn’t have a choice.

What it also did was remind me of the extraordinary people that I have in my life. As my last blog made clear- my mom is gold, and I don’t know where I would be without her. She has been my rock through this whole ordeal, and I will continue to express my gratitude. I have incredible friends that are there for me, and now I know I have tremendous colleagues that, because of this, I found out quickly have my back and support me.  This situation forced me to tap my support system and work harder to create a new one. So at the end of the day, I still come out ahead (unless the house decides to just fall in on top of me which I am not convinced isn’t a possibility at this point). I am blessed, and that’s all there is to it.

So, Murphy…you can suck it.