parting shot

Moving makes one aware of lasts. You know – the last time you visit a favorite restaurant or bookstore or Starbucks. As we were preparing to leave Emeryville, I kept thinking of how we would spend our last Saturday night there.

Because we went to Los Angeles the weekend before we were expected to move, I thought that I would look back and say that our last Saturday night in the Bay Area was spent at Target in El Cerrito buying a stepladder and a padlock (that’s really all we bought), and waiting twenty-five minutes to have dinner at Chevy’s after 9pm. As we didn’t leave as scheduled (on Thursday), it gave a whole new twist to how I actually spent my last Saturday night there.

Towards the end things were getting very stressful. Earlier in the day for the first time in the nearly ten years (on and off) that we had lived in the building, someone parked in our parking space. Actually, they had parked half in our space and half in the space that usually houses the “dragon lady’s” car. Worse, security completely blew it and the culprit got away.

To make matters more intense, B had gone to make a second to the last run to the storage space ( or so we thought) which is literally a block and a half away. It seems as though the city decided to block the street in front of the only entrance to the storage facility and thus that was our last trip there. There had been no notices posted and as long as we have lived in the area we can’t recall a street being completely blocked off. Strange, but it gets even weirder.

B managed to beg the people in charge to let him in to drop off what he had in the car, and from there headed to get the oil changed. He called me to explain he was running late as the guy working on the car ahead of him accidentally opened the cap to the radiator and essentially managed to quite literally blow up their computer. This was the second place B had gone to, and it was getting late so he had no choice but to stay. He had to run and get cash and of course without the computer everything had to be done by hand (something which these folks weren’t used to doing), so everything took much longer than expected.

Meanwhile I am back at the apartment consolidating the items we want to take with us in the car, quickly realizing that there is no way all of it is going to fit. B comes home, we take a break to eat some mini-pizzas I still had in the freezer, disconnect the Internet, and start loading up the car.

On the way down to the car a bag containing my Kate Spade organizer falls off the luggage cart. B doesn’t notice and continues to push the cart, running over it. Upset and wanting him to stop before he does any further damage, I yell. He doesn’t like that I chose to yell and as we start loading the car and it starts to sink in that not everything is going to fit, he becomes more agitated.

We decide to go upstairs and regroup. Try to figure out what we can do. I suggest that we mail some stuff (even though it is Saturday evening, Kinko’s is just down the drive, has recently merged with FedEx and is open 24 hours). By the time we get upstairs B is out of control. As we reach the 27th floor, I don’t know what to do, but certainly I don’t want to go back to the apartment so I stay by the elevators. I can hear B throwing things and yelling.

Meanwhile one of our neighbors who lives on our floor comes to wait for the elevator. I am embarrassed and make some comment about how it’s okay – we’re moving. He doesn’t say anything. The elevator comes, he gets on, pauses for a moment to see if I am coming, I don’t move, so he goes. At this point I just want to die.

I realize as I am standing there that I literally have nothing. No keys, no cell phone, no wallet, no ID – nothing. My pockets are completely empty. I feel beyond alone. I can still hear B down the hall making a ruckus. I don’t know what to do, and start to cry. This is just too much.

B comes out shortly thereafter and finds me in the hall with tears streaming down my face. His first impulse is to yell at me for crying. This is something my Mother used to do, and I become even closer to losing it.

B can tell that something is wrong, changes his tune and brings me back to the apartment. All I want to do is curl into a ball on the floor and disappear. The thought process in my head is not fun. It has been a long time since I have felt that utterly alone and helpless. Realizing that truly at that moment there was nowhere for me to turn. Nowhere to go. And so I lost it.

I fell onto the floor and crawled into a ball and starting panicking and crying. It became hard to breathe. I could feel my lungs against my chest as I gasped for air. On some level I felt like I had no control over what was happening, although another part was trying hard to make it stop. I couldn’t talk.

I sensed that B was a little freaked out by this. He told me that he hated to see me cry and begged me to stop. He was able to finally coax me to sit up. Eventually I was able to speak and told him that he had no idea how hard it has been for me to keep things together. I told him that I felt alone and scared.

He told me that I was the strongest person he knew. I didn’t want to be strong. I was exhausted, not just physically, but mentally and spiritually too. Throughout the move I stressed the importance of us working together, or it was never going to happen. Having him snap and turn into a raging lunatic was my breaking point too.

I drank some water and we both sat there in the nearly empty space as the sun set in the background. It was nearly nine o’clock. I had been up since 5:30am (believing we might be on the road by 3pm) and was drained. The cleaners were coming at 8am and most of our stuff was now down in the car (in a 10 minute loading zone).

We both decided that we just wanted to get on the road. Even if we just got to Sacramento, it would mean we were on our way. So we picked out some of the things we wouldn’t need until we got to Chicago and boxed them up using the boxes we had put in the recycling. B reported that he flipped off the neighbor (a different one) who gave him a dirty look as he retrieved the boxes from the trash room. We left behind some laundry detergent, some cleaning supplies, a trash can, and my vacuum – they just wouldn’t fit and weren’t worth shipping.

We finished loading the car, and B drove the boxes to be shipped in the front seat (it took two trips) to the Kinko’s that is literally at the edge of our driveway. I walked down the block and met him there. It was a little after 10pm when we walked in, and if you have been following along you know that it was shortly before midnight when we left. So that is how we spent our last Saturday night in the Bay Area.