The past few days have been eventful to say the least. And while many of the circumstances were clearly not the most desirable circumstances, I cannot in good faith say that Missy’s Law was active. But it’s never too far away.

I did, in fact, finish up my birthday still packing and gathering things up. My sweet friend Jen drove a really long way to help me tape boxes, pack a few things and have a few drinks. I cannot tell you how relieved I was to see a friendly face, especially one who has been so supportive and there for me through this entire ordeal. After this one, God broke the mold. Anticipating the moving truck the next day and trying to work to the last minute that Kelly and I had scheduled for me to be there, we opted to take the artwork that I have in the house out to her SUV so that it wouldn’t get banged around in the move. I have one piece of art that means the world to me and it has its own story.

Anyway, so we start down the stairs and out to her truck. I cant remember who started joking about us looking like really bad art thieves but Jen was very quick to point out that her out fit (which was a very nice, better-than-business-casual get-up) and my outfit (jeans and a bright red t-shirt with a huge white star in the middle of the chest area) we would have to be the world’s worst art thieves. We amused ourselves with that for a while and then something caught my eye. Due to a high volume of people home on my birthday, Jen had to park basically in front of the next door neighbor’s house. So as we’re loading the paintings, I see that on the neighbor’s lawn directly next to the street lamp (which has been made to look historically accurate for the area) are shoes lined up in a row. I point them out to Jen and tell her how strange that is. But she notices more oddity. There are five of them. Not three pair. Not even two pair and an extra. But five shoes, each different, tied together by the laces with toes towards the curb and heels towards the street lamp. We marvel at that for a while.

Then I insist that I must have a photo of that. Because Jen’s birthday had just passed as well, she received a camera and she had it on hand. So from varying angles at 10:45 pm we stood in the street photographing these shoes without mates. I can’t wait for her to send me the photos. I’ll post the pictures after she does. At that moment I declared I was surrendering my life as an art thief to begin my new career travelling the world photographing odd things like five shoes on a curb. And that was my birthday with my amazing friend.

And as exciting as the following day of moving was, I’ll spare you the tales of pinched fingers and sudden needs for band-aids. Overall it went smoothly and we got all of my furniture in to the truck thanks to the kindness of my four friends and two reluctant children who were commanded to grab boxes. While I didn’t do the commanding, I did try to ease the blow by letting them know that they were kid sized boxes. But then I had to admit to my friends that I actually pack boxes only to the point that I can carry them. I mean it does suck making 18 million trips up and down stairs but it doesn’t do me any good to pack a box too big or too heavy for me to carry. Sadly, since the stroke, I don’t have the same strength I used to have (which was not very impressive to begin with) so the boxes were actually perfect for the 7 year old and the 11 year old…and me.

What we ended up doing was taking everything to Jen’s house. Yep, she drove really far again the very next day to help with the moving of the things we had packed. My other friends also drove from very far away to help me with this. Melissa and Johnny couldn’t find a babysitter but they don’t back out last minute even though that’s a valid excuse. Nope, they don’t let me down. They pack up the kids and bring them with. We found a camera for the 4 year old to be occupied with and a basket of my dog and cat toys for the 5 month old. My friends amaze me.

And the final player is a friend who I had just reconnected with right before the stroke (and then kind of disconnected with as I regained my abilities). But let me tell you how awesome this one is. I haven’t seen Joan in 7 or 8 years. I told her what was going on and she said, “Where do I need to be and when?”

Would you be that open to helping someone you hadn’t seen in 7 years? Well, the fact that Joan was eager to help after all this time is only one of many things that makes her incredible. One thing that came in very handy is another of Joan’s traits. Since middle school, she has been freakishly strong. I mean she looks like a normal woman (with great hair, by the way). But Melissa and I were baffled about how to get this full file cabinet down the stairs. We had the dolly and were just short of having protractors out to calculate angles when Joan comes over, sighs at our uselessness, picks this file cabinet up, and trots it down the stairs.

Did I mention that my friends amaze me?

So got it all loaded up, started the caravan to Jen’s house, got it all unloaded and there was still sunlight. I must admit. I’m impressed. There were only a few moving casualties (a lamp here, a little damage to the finish of a piece there). The low number of boo-boos also surprised me because we were going so quickly. I did think Johnny had a little too much fun throwing my suitcases of shoes down the stairs (and, yes, I have suitcases of shoes. Before I acquired the anxiety disorder I was a normal girl with normal girl habits – like buying shoes.) What’s so sad is that Kelly never got to see that girl. But back to the story.

I did notice that the roses from my grandmother’s funeral that I had saved and dried to include in a shadow box of little reminders I have of her were victims to the move. I think Melissa knew that Jacob (the 4 year old) had something to with the fact that they were ground practically to dust in front of the apartment door and when I mentioned from what occasion they had been saved she looked so apologetic and helpless (very rare for Melissa, by the way) that I tried to minimize it as usual by making a joke. But again as usual my dark humor will either lighten a mood or intensify the discomfort. I think this time it did the latter.

I think what disturbed me the most, though, wasn’t the loss of the roses. I mean, I’ll remember Mimi forever, roses or not. What bothered me was that they were directly in front of the door through which Kelly has to enter the apartment. Kelly has a habit of jumping to the worst possible conclusion and then running with it. There were often times he would have entire arguments with me and scream at the top of his lungs at “me” in the car on the way home before I even knew that he was upset by whatever I said. And I have to admit this, even to me, Ms. Let’s Explore All the Possibilities, this seemed like a very clear message. Especially since he knew I had saved my bouquet from our wedding and dried the roses so they would forever maintain their shape. Those however have been very carefully wrapped, padded and packed.

Don’t want to overwhelm anyone here so I’ve decided to split up the entries about the move and the rest. So the situation was certainly not the most ideal (ideally I wouldn’t have made the decisions that I did that led to me having to move my things out of the apartment; ideally I wouldn’t have had a stroke so I would have been more capable of assisting these people who had come to help me; ideally everything would be different). But things are not ideal. I made choices that left me with things the way they are, far from ideal and slowly creeping out of the surreal state. It’s going to suck when it all catches up with me. But that, too, is a result of my own poor decisions.

Missy’s Law may have given us moving day off, it didn’t wait long to get back in to play.