I used to say that instead of spring cleaning – I moved.

Friends and family used to tell me that they always wrote my address in their address books (remember those) in pencil.

I moved.  A lot.

So why is the whole thought of pulling up roots in San Jose and toddling across country back to Michigan such a daunting idea?

I guess I can attribute part of it to the fact that I never lived in any one place (including my childhood homes) as long as I have lived in our little house in San Jose.  I’ve been here almost 26 years. 

That’s time enough to accumulate a shit ton of stuff. 

And a bunch of that shit ton of stuff is heading to Michigan.  Not all of it – but a lot of it.

I have always been about my “stuff”.  Almost every piece of the stuff that I own has it’s own memory attached. 

Other things that I have may not have memories attached, but these things were not easy to come by.  Like a lot of my music and the books I use for Dikke Dame Doll ideas (not to mention the ones that I plan on using in the future), and patterns to make fat cloth dolls.  And (God (TIDBI) help me) all the craft supplies. 

And then, there’s my clothes.  I have an unreasonable amount of clothing and shoes (not including my costumes and shoes and hats and jewelry for theater use). 

When I moved across country from Michigan to California, I was smart – I shipped everything by freight – by the pound!  The boxes were delivered to my sister Linda’s house where I picked the stuff up when I had a place to put all that stuff. 

When I moved from Los Angeles to San Jose, I got rid of a lot of stuff and just packed up a U-Haul.  Bill drove the truck and I drove my car (including two unhappy cats). 

And this isn’t like moving from an apartment – where if I don’t want to clean it or fix stuff, I can just walk away from a security deposit. This time, stuff has to get done.

Oh well.  As I said in one of my prior blogs – this too shall pass.

One of these days, I’ll look back and think, son of a bitch, I can’t believe how easy (or difficult) that way.  I just want to be at that looking back part.  Now.