Soulless

I have packed up the soul of my house.  That is to say the books.  The art.  The accessories.  All the things that make a house a home.  I have patched the walls, sanded, and painted all the nail holes where my treasured windows into other places hung–even though my husband said I shouldn’t bother.  I’m a nice person, and I think it’s fair to leave things nice (given the day I had yesterday, I’m inclined to change my mind, but it’s done now).  My treasures are all in boxes now, in the back room, stacked neatly in a corner amid what is otherwise chaos.  They got packed first because I don’t need them on a daily basis.  Not like my laptop or my cookware. I can survive with my Nook since that’s loaded up with more than I could possibly read in the next month before we are supposed to move.

I feel like a stranger in my own home, caught in limbo in this strange world between here and gone–a place that makes me slightly crazy because I hate things in boxes, things out of place.  It’s one of the reasons I despise moving.  I’m completely out of sorts.

Add to that a naive buyer who…well I’m going to delete all of the vitriolic invective that I’ve been spewing since yesterday.  I just finished reading the latest Black Dagger Brotherhood novel and spending that much time with the Brothers never does anything good for my language.  Let’s just say she is being difficult and making an already stressful process considerably more so.  It’s not cool to not be able to use my sanctuary during times of stress.   It’s just not my sanctuary with all this stuff in boxes.

I know, I’m sounding like a broken record.  But it’s a neurosis with me.  Stuff in boxes means INSTABILITY and DISORDER and it mucks with my semi-OCD brain.  In another few days I’ll develop a tick.

How do you find your zen if your sanctuary isn’t available?

9 thoughts on “Soulless

  1. Don’t worry, Kait. The month will be over before you know, you’ll be unpacking boxes, and surrounded by your treasures. Been there and created the t-shirt. Good thoughts coming your way.

  2. You’re going to have to find that peace inside yourself for right now. After all, even though those other things are important to you, they are just things. The important thing is you, and I know you can find a way to feel better about this. Because you’re Kait, and you’re awesome. :0) Just keep telling yourself how temporary this boxed up mess is.

    I can’t believe your buyer is being this difficult. I can’t imagine what she’s doing. I saw on Twitter where you were afraid the deal was going to fall through. How is that looking now?

  3. I know how you feel, Kait! In March I packed up all my stuff — including the stuff I love most (yarn and books) — and I only just got it all back a few weeks ago. Moving across the world had me almost paranoid that something was going to happen to my stuff. And even though one of my carry-on suitcases was nothing but books (I’m not lying) AND I had my Sony eReader filled with new stuff to last me two and a half months, it almost wasn’t enough, lol.

    It gets better when you get your stuff and you open that first box filled with books. 🙂

  4. I know this about you, get this about you, and have for a long time. It was interesting, though, to have the question directed at me. We know that I’m not like this, that I have a high tolerance for clutter, mess, and yes, even filth. I’ll go months after a move with things in boxes. At times, some stacks of boxes have become a part of the permanent landscape. (It wasn’t until I got really into Flylady in my early 30s that I even worried about busting down things like a corner of stacked boxes.) I don’t have routines, plans and schedules cause a lot of anxiety, and I live with a fair amount of chaos.

    So I was like, sanctuary? I don’t think of my house that way, or a room in my house, or any kind of place. My sanctuary has always been in my head. The place I go to play with my brain dolls, the place from which I observe and record others when I’m too shy to participate, the place I go when I read a good book, the place I go to find out something to say when someone else is ranting about their own chaos. Maybe that’s one of the benefits to being all internalizing and stuff.

    But this ties back to what you and I were talking about last night, actually. It’s easier to get to that place when I’m alone. The more distractions there are, the harder it is to stay there. Being social on the internet can be fun and rewarding, but to some extent it’s like having a party going on right outside the door with people knocking and asking if I’m in there, when I’m coming out, or maybe sometimes just that I can hear the chatter and it’s not as peaceful on my side of the wall. Maybe I have trouble pushing the chatter and sense of expectation back from my space the same way you have trouble dealing with chaos in yours.

  5. I’ve been there myself; there’s something about living with boxes that just makes everything else feel wrong. When it gets to be too much, I have to retreat to a fantasy world and curl up with a book. Or avoid going home. 😉

  6. Ugh, sorry you’re having a hard time with the buyer. I wish people would think beyond their own needs to the other people involved. Try not to let it disrupt you too much (and I know it’s hard!). Power should be your own, not someone Else’s.

    Hugs! Maybe think of this as Writing Research into the feeling of displacement? (lol, yes I am all about the glass half full!)

    Angela @ The Bookshelf Muse

  7. All good ideas. Here’s another suggestion: close your eyes, breathe in and out slowly. See yourself walking down a dim hallway to a door. Open the door to a room – any size, any shape, and fill it what makes it your hideaway, your zen, your place to replenish. Decorate it with whatever it takes to make you happy. Stay there for as long as you need. When you are ready to leave, close the door and walk back down the hallway. Open your eyes.

    The nice thing is you can redecorate the room everytime you enter it or you can leave it the same as long as you need it. You have your zen moment / time / space within yourself for whenever you need it.

    Best wishes on your move.

  8. Kait, I too abhor moving..I do know exactly how you feel. But you are never without sanctuary as long as you can escape into your writing or the writing of others. Every difficult time in my life was filled with reading or writing. When I left my husband with nothing but my suitcase and children in the back seat, I went on a reading binge, consuming every volume of the Dragon Riders of Pern. When I left my cozy apt. to move in with my tyrannical sister..I began writing my first novel as a way to vent and escape. And when my son was recovering from a near fatal motorcycle accident..I read eight of the Sooky Stackhouse series. You’ll always have sanctuary Kait, you’ll be ok.

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