the final countdown

I'm sleep-deprived, exhausted and my knees hurt from racing up and down the stairs of my apartment all day, but my room *finally* looks like I'm moving out in the relatively near future. If you squint, it might even look like I'm moving out tomorrow! I've shipped an obscene number of boxes (and given an obscener pile of stuff to Salvation Army -- where did this stuff come from?) and discarded any furniture my roommate didn't want, and all that's left to do is consolidate the trash and recycling, clean the floors and try to fit whatever's left in my suitcases. I'll probably have to pay the extra fee for too-heavy checked luggage, but since (a) I'm not technically paying for the move and (2) I won't really have any other options, I won't be too heartbroken if it happens.

One thing I wasn't expecting was how ambivalent I'm feeling about leaving -- while I've gotten a little teary at the past few goodbyes, I think the combination of sheer exhaustion (it's been more than a week since I've gotten more than six hours of sleep) and spending the past week in a messy, partially-packed apartment is letting me concentrate more on where I'm going than what I'm leaving. I know the next couple of days -- traveling across the country (with a stopover, of course) with two suitcases, an overstuffed backpack and a violin case that I'll probably have to fight to classify as a carry-on, then building an apartment from scratch -- have a high probability of sucking, but at the other end is an apartment! Just for me! Dishes will only get dirty because I've used them, I can have as much cable television as I want, and I won't be forced to make small talk when all I want to do is watch "Dateline." It's unfortunate that I had to move 3,000 miles away to get all this, but I'm fairly certain it'll be worth it.