Books on the Move

The first time I ever moved out of my parents' house, I was relocating myself to Provo.  Packing, in those days, provided a thrill.  It symbolized freedom, independence . . . and only involved six boxes or so.  I'm not kidding.  Since BYU kindly provided me with a bed for the entirety of my freshman year (although I tried incredibly hard not to think of all the microbes that could be living in the mattress and all of the people who had slept there before I had), I didn't need to worry about moving furniture.  Just clothes.  And books. 

 

Back then, I had a decent-sized library.  Larger than anyone else my age I knew, but not so huge as to be steadfastly immovable.  Still, I didn't move many of my books because colleges have libraries.  Libraries--big ones--have books I've never read.  And they let me borrow them for free (provided I return them, of course--Roommate who will only be Roommate until Saturday has a brother--who I mentioned before--who believes public libraries are another way for the government to control our lives and that one of the first steps to having a better-functioning society is to privatize public libraries . . . but that's another subject for another day)

 

Neither of my two BYU moves (from home to Heritage Halls and then from home to Deseret Towers) required much packing or unpacking.  And then moving home proved a cakewalk.  But then I stayed comfortably home for four years and I acquired a lot of stuff. Some shoes.  Quite a few more books.  Still, when I moved into my friends' condo, I only had eight boxes.  Nine when I moved back home again.  (You guessed it: more books)

 

When Roommate and I moved to Salt Lake, it required so much more effort.  Eight boxes had only books in them.  Two boxes were completely devoted to shoes.  My clothes had somehow managed to multiply and replenish.  And this time, my bed and bookshelves and desk all moved with me.

 

The packing for this move began in earnest on Saturday.  Ten boxes now occupy a corner of the living room in my current apartment.  One of them is destined for the D.I.  (Does it have books in it?  No!!  How dare you think such a thing?  Sacrilege!!  But everyone should be proud: it does contain two pairs of shoes I've barely worn.)  The other nine are labeled: "Books and Clothes."  (I received a lecture after the condo move about packing more than one layer of books into a box.  My dad claims I forever affected his back by making him move forty-million pound boxes of books.)  Also "Books and Miscellaneous," "More Books and Clothes," "More Books and Knick-Knacks," "More Books and Miscellaneous" . . . you get the idea.

 

If I get my wish for moving out of state to go to graduate school, I might have to leave the books behind.  Or else I'll have an incredibly interesting move.  (Do they have a name for a person who feels separation anxiety when deprived of her books too long?)