Adventures of a Non-Binary Author – Moving Day
I’m an early riser, so I managed to wake up before my alarm. Another morning of speed running my day-off routine. Can’t be helped though, we need to make sure all the last minute things are done before the movers arrive. Doing the dishes and packing away the washing up stuff the night before saves time. We’ve also picked up a no-mess breakfast to avoid having to use anything this morning.
It’s almost hard to believe this is where we are now. After spending so long waiting to move, to actually be doing it. To no longer be the one owning and living in this flat. The flat that I’ve called home for almost six years. It feels both hard to believe and very real all at the same time. Harder still because we’re not moving from here to our forever home. We’ll be having to move again before the year is out. That’s an exhausting thought. Our estate agent told me we were doing a noble thing, going through with this. I’m not sure that’s the word I would use, but I do know this is the right decision to make. We will know exactly what we’re working with this way. And when we do find our forever home, we can just say yes. No waiting. No risk of losing it because we haven’t sold yet. Just a simple, we want this, here’s our offer, do you accept?
But that moment is a long way off. Right now we have to focus on the move. I potter around, doing my morning routine. My partner wakes as I come towards the end of my exercising. They shower and dress whilst I finish up. I shower and dress once I’m done. We have a quick breakfast, before pottering around, doing the last minute things. This includes waiting for Zelly to wake. We need to contain her in the cage part of her setup. She used to having so much freedom, she will not like this. Worse still, there will be no time outside of the enclosure tonight. It’s for her own safety, of course. She can’t come out until we’re sure it’s safe for her to do so. But she’s going to be so unhappy with us.
Zelly wakes just before eight. Once she’s within the cage area, I close the door on her. She’s instantly confused. She probably doesn’t remember the last time this has happened. The last time it was to split the cage after she and her sister had a nasty fight. We got them to reclan, and had a good eight months with both of them as things had been prior. But Rye had come off worse from the fight. And we suspect it’s the reason she didn’t last long after their third birthday. As an elderly gerbil, we didn’t expect Zelly to survive this long on her own. My previous pair went close together, within a couple of weeks of each other. Zelly’s age is one of the reasons we think it would be unfair to get her a new companion. The other is that she was the more aggressive in the fight between her and her sister. We have to consider the safety of both if we were to get her a playmate. So we watched her closely the first couple of weeks. Any sign of depression and we would attempt to clan her with a new friend. nine months later and she’s still thriving on her own.
The movers arrive just before nine. They don’t get started till just after. We wait for my mum to arrive. She’s our transport. Zelly will be coming in the car with us. We do our best to stay out of the way, and clean up as things clear out. There’s no need for us to hang around too long after the flat is empty. We don’t have the keys for the rental yet, but they will be waiting for us when we arrive. Mum arrives halfway through the process. We get a few bits and pieces into her boot. Mostly right now we’re just hanging around waiting. The next stage happens after everything has been packed.
The next stage is dropping off our keys. Signing them into the estate agent, so they can be signed out once the money has gone through. That’s both an exciting and terrifying thought.The lump sum I’ll be receiving is more than I’ve ever had across all my accounts combined. Still, once we have it, we’ll be in the best position we can be. And this time we will settle for nothing less than a house.
The flat has been fully loaded into the van by eleven. The keys are dropped off quickly, and we make it to our new residence for eleven thirty. Now the unloading happens. Zelly remains in the car. She is checked on throughout. We have lunch around the same time the movers take a break. We move and shift boxes around to make space for furniture to come in. I can clearly see a lot of moving boxes around over the next couple of days. The plan was not to take out more than the essentials. But creating a space to live, even for six months, would feel more relaxed with a little more than that. The movers are done by three. As they were wrapping up we moved Zelly in. She’s still just in the cage part for now. We have to repair her enclosure just a little first.
Still, we’re in. All three of us. Now we just have to make this place feel less chaotic. We may be the home, but this will be the roof over our heads for the next sixish months. We should make that as nice as it can be. There’s a lot to get done, can we manage it all before returning to work on Thursday? We’ve only got tomorrow to find out…
To be continued…
