You know, it's only been about three months thereabouts that these pictures were taken, and yet, somehow, it feels like they had been taken a very long time ago.
Could it be because we packed at a rapid pace and got things moving at a rapid pace?
Could it be because we were busy with work stuff and all kinds of stuff around the time that we were supposed to move (around end August) and so each of us did it in such a way that whilst it might have been phase by phase, it was also an adrenaline drive sort of thing?
I don't know.
I just know that the last fortnight of August and the first week of September was nothing I had ever experienced before.
I'm not complaining.
I'm not saying that it was a bad thing.
I'm just saying that with the kind of life I've lived, I'd never moved from one space to another space before.
I'd never lived my daily life with my things half packed here and there.
I had no idea what it was like to sort things out and pack them into boxes within a very short period of time.
And I had no idea what it took to clear off section by section by section of the house and sort stuff into boxes and cartons and piles and bags.
It was a bit of a nervous thing for me.
But because I'm the sort who does things bit by bit by bit- instead of the one-off blitz method which The Hedgehog applies- one of the first things I did was to clean out the top two shelves of the pantry cupboard.
Let's just say that there were a lot of biscuits (not mine) and a lot of coffees (also not mine) that I threw away.
After that things got a little more systematic- I cleared out a shelf in my room, I unpacked an old carton box in my room to make space for other stuff, and I began clearing out stuff from drawers that I seldom used, throwing away uneaten and expired food that I was keeping only for mementoes' sake, and tossing out things that I no longer cared about and no longer had a meaning to me.
Let's just say I was glad when these large carton boxes were taken out from the storeroom because I knew I could have more things sorted out, packed in, and- if necessary- thrown out.
Let's also say I felt that deep sense of satisfaction when I sorted things out into these huge plastic boxes and clipped their lids shut.
Funny how it is now that I don't remember now what went into where, but the yellow suitcase I've still left unopened as I don't need the things yet inside.
Perhaps the thing that overwhelmed me most were the piles and piles and piles of paper that were here, there, everywhere.
I had no idea there were so many letters and papers lying all around the house.
But there they were- some ready to be packed into boxes, some ready for the shredder.
I think we must have had at least four or five bags full of shredded paper by the end of it all.
Looking at these pictures, I wonder now how it is we managed to get rid of all the stuff that needed to be gotten rid of, how it is we managed to sort everything out, how it is that we managed to pack what we needed to pack, and how it is we managed to find space for the clothes to the toiletries to the kitchen stuff to the knick knacks lying around here and there.
It's a miracle that we somehow managed to clean up and empty out the apartment within the span of (more or less) within a week.
I won't soon forget just how natural the "mess" in the house surfaced.
How empty spaces here and there became space filled with random stuff here and there, and how as we neared towards the move-out date, even the long (show) couch became so filled with stuff that there was only a tiny little corner for me to sit on.
I won't go into details of what we kept and what we threw- by that time I was no longer in the spirit to document anything- but let's just say that there were multiple trips to the dustbin downstairs, including, if I may say, our still fully decorated six-year old Christmas tree.
There were a couple of things we didn't take along.
Like the clock on the wall.
Like some of the cleaning stuff in the cupboard underneath the sink
And odds and ends like the safe, a sackful of plastic bags big and small, and four bags of water.