Packing Alone

Packing alone is not very comforting. Nor is it any faster I have found. I find myself glancing to the computer hoping that someone is trying to contact me. Packing is a lonely affair if you are packing alone. It is also a great way to get nothing accomplished. 

Yesterday, after I had unpacked half my closet and made piles of books and shoes and miscellaneous items that I did not know I had and will never use again, wanting some entertainment to distract me from the frantic chaos in my mind, I turned the television on. Let me be honest, it did not really help. Rather, it filled up my mind until I was crying about women in prison who deliver babies in the hospital and stay overnight and are then immediately return to their correctional facility; or Teen Mom; or the office, or the Nationals. More was filling my mind, but nothing was getting out. By 11 o'clock, my room was a mess, my bed was unmade and I was feeling alone and mentally exhausted.

Frieder had gone to New York on Sunday with his roommate to visit their old roommate from a couple years ago. He will not be back until tomorrow evening. To make matters worse, I had dropped off Abby at the ariport in the morning. If that was not hard enough, as I returned from running in to help her carry her third bag, I saw an officer filling out a parking violation because my vehicle was "unattended". Let me just say that I am not one to make excuses. I knew that I could get in trouble but I wanted to help her. She just could not handle all three and there were no employees around to help. There was only one other car aside from mine, so I decided to just bring it in and say goodbye quickly. But we had to walk all the way down to the opposite end of the terminal and so five minutes passed before I made it back outside. I stopped short, with tears fighting to escape my eyes and thought to myself, damn it! Yep, I swore in my head. At that point I just did not care too much. I called out to him that it was my car and that I would move it now. He continued to scribble and then slowly turned his head toward my frame as it advanced toward my car. "Whyyyy is your vehicle unattended?" he asked with a cocky, teasing tone. It was all I could do not to burst into tears on the spot. "I'm sorry", I said, "my friend needed help with her bag". He asked for a good excuse and I had none to give. So he handed me my $30 parking violation and told me to have a "good morning". Yea....

I will not say that this ruined my day. It really was not a bad day. Except that the older kids would not stop bickering with one another as soon as they got home. The antagonizing and teasing and constant bickering is enough to make me nearly lose my patience. But I love those kids and so I just lovingly told them to STOP! We had a good afternoon though. Evan and I won a game of Euro Cup on Xbox against Republic of Ireland. We are generally not a winning team--mostly because Evan never passes, but also because I am just not as good at video games as I used to be.... I have convinced him that the German team is the best and when he asked me to play he told me that he had deleted the second account, which was England and restarted another as Germany, because "they are just the best. I like them better. Lehman is the best goalie!" I gave a mind salute to Frieder.

So here I am packing again. I have been much more successful today, I think. Mostly because I have purposefully kept the television off. I have listened to music instead. Adele, Florence + The Machine, Fleet Foxes, Noah and The Whale, St. Lola in The Fields...some more Florence. They have been highly motivational. Providing that surrogate friend and encourager; telling me "keep it up, Deanna! You are doing good" and "Throw that away!" Now out in my hall there sits three, one square foot boxes and three extra pairs of shoes I found that were not already thrown away in the great shoe purge of yesterday. They are ready to be dropped down in the "get-rid-of-your-junk-room" that was once the community room on the second floor. Yesterday I brought a very large box full of my "junk" and several other random stacks that I had created in the livingroom. I am making some good progress and feel lighter already.

I will be very grateful to have my Frieder back though He is coming tonight, although I plan to be in bed--I have too much to do to wait up. His parents are coming in tomorrow evening. I am so excited! Then on Friday, my entire family is coming! Fun! Then will commence chaos, as we have commissioning and then graduation and packing and possibly Williamsburg and then driving 10 hours with the possibility of stopping a day in D.C., and then having them for a few days and him for a week. Oh the adventures. Pray for my emotional and mental sanity! It's going to be a whirlwind!