Bourgeois dream; or, Solzhenitsyn R.I.P.

The past week has been a steady series of foiled expectations and dashed hopes, the most glaring of which involved, of course, moving.  After a day of frantic packing and cleaning, the hubs and I loaded up a rental car, circled the new building ten times to find parking, waited for the concierge for half an hour in a stiflingly unventilated lobby, and were finally greeted with the joyous news that the former tenant had decided to stay for two weeks past her lease.  We've been temporarily housed in a similar unit on the sixth floor ("What a view!  Think of it as a honeymoon suite!") and assured that by the time we return from our Eastern European vacation in September, all of our belongings would be hauled back down to our real apartment on the second floor, free of charge.  We're also getting a pass on rent for the month... all of which would be nice, except for the fact that after living alone for two years in a filthy student ghetto, the last thing I want to be doing for the final two weeks of the long-distance relationship between my husband and I is coming home to bare walls and cardboard boxes.  In fact, the only thing that got me through the past month, nay, year, was the giddy daydream of hardcore nesting: elaborate floor-plans, kitchen wizardry, and Martha-Stewart-meets-D.I.Y.-punk crafting projects to make our house a home.

Well, scratch that one.  Stuck settling again, buying plastic cutlery and four-dollar knife sets from CVS because it makes no sense to equip a kitchen that's only temporarily mine.  Temporariness.  Transience.  The kind of feeling that was already familiar when I was eight and already a veteran of no less than three major cross-country moves, not to mention one involving traversing continents.  When I was eight, my mother was the one who got stressed and cried, while I busied myself playing with packaging detritus.  Moving is sad, I'd say to myself, but empty rooms are the best for cartwheels.  Now I'm eight thrice over, and I'm the one who bursts into tears at the prospect of dealing with landlords and electric companies.  And across the twin seas separating us, the Atlantic and my frustration, my mother now spreads her unconvincing over-the-phone balm: "Don't worry!  Don't stress!  It's nothing, nothing!"  I don't buy a word of it.  I remember how much it wore on her, this living out of half-unpacked boxes.  I remember how much it wore on me, quietly and insidiously, and how amazed I was to visit friends' houses and see the stolidness, the weighty reliability and immobility of their furnishings.  

Not surprisingly, I've adapted quite well.  Ran little errands today in between reading, stopped by the local bakery for a fresh loaf and tore into it with my hands when I got home.  Pirated wireless at Panera, drinking coffee for three hours while I worked on a Russian essay.  Now pirating wireless at "home," cheap cereal box fan rigged up to keep me cool and drinking tea from an ancient plastic Mardi Gras cup.  The same kind of life I've been living for the past year, but in a bigger place and nicer zip code.  All the tears of frustration have been squeezed out.  At least there's Imperial Stout in the fridge and the neighborhood is great.  Time, again, always and once more, for a little antici...pation.