Moving Day
I prepared for moving day like all other overwhelming moments in my life. I take otherwise seemingly daunting moments and strip them down into smaller, palatable checklists. I packed whatever I could fit into my SUV. I sent a list of furniture to my then husband that I would plan to take. I went grocery shopping for the food I would find comfort in, cleaning supplies, and other essentials needed for a new home. And while I emptied a few of my kitchen cabinets of just enough pots and silverware to get me started, I watched my sweet dog in the background. She sat for days in the garage on the sofa I planned to take. If I kept moving, I would not absorb her anxiety. If I kept moving, I would not absorb the magnitude of the decision I was making. I turned to my girl once, and told her, “Mom will be back.” Because in that moment, I truly believed I would be.
It was a brisk and gray morning with snow in the forecast the day I moved out of my marital home. The weather was another component to an already tumultuous time, and I knew we had only a few hours to make the drive to my new apartment before it turned worse. And by we, I mean my then husband and me. He loaded up his trailer with the furniture I would be taking. Our guestroom bed. The coffee table we bought for our first home. It was all entirely surreal. I did not believe he would actually let me go.
I ordered egg sandwiches from a local spot up the street where I had spent many of my Friday evenings picking up carryout. I wiped the countertops one last time, still taking pride in the home I had intimately cared for and loved. I said goodbye to the porch I had always wanted; the dreamy kind that wraps around the house and you can appreciate regardless of the season. I climbed slowly into my SUV, backed out of my garage, and remembered something an old colleague had told me before I made the long crawl up the driveway, past my neighbors who continued about their day. She reminded me of the scripture in Genesis 19:17, to not look back. “Do not look back or stop anywhere in the valley. Escape to the hills, lest you be swept away.” If you are familiar with this passage, you know it results in a man’s wife who did not listen to the warning, looked back, and was turned into a pillar of salt. I would heed this warning today, and not look back.
I handed the breakfast sandwich to my then husband through his truck window like it was any other morning. Like he was on his way to a work engagement, and not moving his wife fifty miles away. But this was a normal reaction for me at this time. To freeze, dissociate, act entirely and unemotionally normal to avoid receiving strong emotional reactions. I knew I needed to save any remaining shreds of confidence for the moment we arrived at my new place. The moment I would need to tell him he could not have a key.
Being just the two of us, the move-in process to an apartment the size of my former master bedroom closet was entirely formidable. It was an anticipated trigger for my then husband’s intolerance for difficult situations. Except this time, I was not behind closed doors. I was out on display in the middle of an apartment complex, and tolerating this behavior. This was the first impression I made at the new place I would call home. It was humiliating and validating all at the same time. The staff I grew to know as kind, warm individuals still spoke of this memorable move-in, on the day I moved out almost two years later. They saw me.
The door closed after the last bit of boxes were brought in, and my throat closed as I knew this was the moment he would be asking me for a key. It was just him and I, a few boxes and furniture thrown about, and fourteen years of life hanging in the air between us. And I told him no. I told him this was a therapeutic separation, and I would not be giving him a key to my place. I rehearsed this response with my APSAT coach. I said it out loud as we approached the apartment complex, as the snowflakes began to dance across my windshield. And I wish I could say it gave me a renewed strength to say it out loud to him, to look him in the eyes, speak my needs and put my safety first, but it didn’t. It broke me, to my core. I turned the lock, and stared at the sterile, white-walled space, and said, “what have I done…”
I share this part of my story, to continue sharing truth. To share the raw truth that we can be both beautifully in denial while simultaneously surrendering to a God whom just two months prior I begged desperately to get me out. Both can equally exist. But on this day, moving day, I ultimately chose to surrender.
After I sat for a bit and processed the events that had just transpired, I opened a few boxes and made up my bed. I wiped down the countertops and the fridge. I went downstairs to the front desk to introduce myself. To apologize. And was met with warm smiles and “no apologies necessary.” They assured me only tenants with a key could enter the building. I went back to my apartment, closed the door, turned the lock, and all was quiet. No one was coming in. This was my place. This was my peace. This, dear partner, was exactly what I needed.
