#32 | moving
Moving was so difficult this morning. The night prior, I went to Flushing (again) with some friends to eat dumplings, and then had too much milk tea for dessert. When I returned home and finished up packing, my mattress sealed in a bag, I laid wide awake on the couch with my friends' discord call on speaker next to my ear. One of my ex and I's cats snuggled underneath the blanket with me, and the other (who ordinarily doesn't like to get too close) laid on top. It's like they knew it could be the last time we get to hold each other and decided to call a truce. The next morning, I awoke to a phone call from the movers, who had arrived early. The cats were still sound asleep next to me, so I shook them awake and then shut them away.
I dissociated and held everything in as the movers did their work. Once they left, I began building my new home as quickly as possible. My new apartment has radiators, and I was sweating and so frustrated; assembling furniture is a task simply not designed to do alone. Every time before, my ex or a member of my family accompanied me. Creating a home alone is difficult.
3 pm arrived, and my desk and bedframe were standing. I realized I hadn't eaten anything all day. I got takeout, barely touched a tofu bento box, and then dialed into therapy where I finally sobbed about how everything is finally fucking over and nothing will ever be the same again, how my ex used to say that they were my cats too, that I was their favorite, that we had built our own little family with them. One day I'll probably be able to visit them, but unless she and I get back together, I'll never fall asleep with them next to me ever again. I'll miss them so much.
Because I moved out before my ex, I thought about all the small decisions I had to make that she did not. I put all her things in piles, possessions of hers that I grew to recognize as fixtures in the three years we lived together. I chose which photos and other shared items to keep, and which to leave for her. I packed items that she probably barely even remembers giving me. She won't have to experience the feeling of disassembling our home, item by item; she'll simply walk in and her things will be there. I've wondered what will go through her mind. Will she feel my absence, and how deeply will she let that feeling persist?
I have recently been reaching some breakthroughs in therapy about how my fear of abandonment has been on high for weeks now. I often feel out of control and ruled by my heart instead of my brain, replaying her cruel text to me even though I know it wasn't written in a sane state of mind, convinced that she hates me and sees me as a failure, and therefore I am. It's a black hole of thought that captures me as I wake and as I sleep. We've been digging into the origins of that fear of abandonment. I'm curious to see how much progress I can make on shrinking/healing that fear before I see my ex for our next in-person conversation.