Thursday, August 11, 2011

When one absentee announcement follows hot on the heels of another one at Secondhand Rants, you know something special is afoot. Special and horrific, more precisely, because I’ve spent the past seven days helping family move, and if the old adage claims family, much like fish, is only good for about three days, then you do the math. I’ve been to a dark place, the veiled fringes of the human psyche, and there I beheld my true self. But now I’m back.

Normally family more than suffices on its own, but when it intersects with a ritual as dire as moving, well, these two axes bring about a remarkable transformation. The niceties that gird your public persona, the manufactured contours that shape your usual self–all melt away in short order, and in their place is the brutish, honest truth of the real you. I knew this going into Day One and vowed, in my heart of hearts, to treat this as chance to better myself.

It was successful. Mostly. When tempers flared, I sought to breathe. When nerves were frayed, I was quick to reset and recuperate. I think above all, I need to be a more patient person. This seems so clear now, but when you’re in the thick of it, with minimal sleep, the capacity for quiet reflection sits, how shall we say, on the ass-end of the totem pole. There’s no room for sustained thought. There is only the next box, the next load of garbage to haul to the city dump, the next bag to donate to Goodwill. But tonight, there is only this post. And that’s a breeze.