Moving Day
An original philosophical poem
Change is inevitable.
It rippled through my life, this past weekend, like an ocean wave splashing on beach. I moved out of the house where I had lived for the last seven years to a larger house in a neighboring city. This move represents a chance to write a new happier chapter in my life and a chance to escape from a place filled with bad memories.
Going to a new house inspired this poem in today’s newsletter. Moving is so often a fork in the road. It can lead to a fresh start, offer a way out from an unforgiving past. But a cruel irony often emerges. No matter how much we try to leave the past behind, it tags along like a shadow and keeps pouring new salt into old wounds.
One life packed into endless boxes. Every square inch of the car inundated and swallowed by a cardboard and plastic sea. An empty house I leave behind. Memories stuffed into a garbage bin. I enter the busy freeway Driving toward a fresh start. Not a starter house or a temporary pit stop. My destination is a new home. A place to rest aching feet, heal a broken heart. New neighbors greet me with a wave and a smile. Or so I picture it in my head. My lower back and the boxes weave a different tale. No selfless volunteers join me, walking that extra mile. A silent house behind the door. Other people's memories wiped clean. Change is a cruel fleeting dream. One day resembles the next. You never score a touchdown, when life always moves the goalposts.
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I know the pain you're talking about because I've moved house 10 times. It's like changing skin, being gutted of memories, having to create new ones, starting a new life, recognizing other faces, strangers, as if they were from another planet. Moving house is like changing space and time. It's a kind of dimensional journey