HNT

It’s moving day.

Most of my life is neatly boxed into a mausoleum of sequestered belongings, each crypt marked with scribbled legends of the bones within. This is the stuff that follows me from my family’s first home after divorce, some of it mine for decades—my once impressive comic book collection now diminished to a few essentials boasting “still only twenty cents!”—but most of these things are recent acquisitions. When I left my marriage, I took nothing that my wife and I shared. Every fork, corkscrew and paper clip was too freighted with histories of gifts, purchases and compromises to be cleanly divided as marital property. I left it all behind.

Now, when I pick up something, I can know it’s mine. No one’s rash decisions or furious arguments will take these things away.

Moving from this apartment controlled by my ex’s family is another step in securing a future less trammeled by the past. Sorting and packing has been a chore, but when I unpack, it will be in a place my children and I can call home without anxiety about what their mother might do to compromise it.

Home will feel just that much safer.

I’m likely to be offline for a few days as I move and get settled. I’ll leave you for now with a happy memory from the past year: a photograph of the orgy debut of my boss boots. I have great memories of the brief time I lived in this temporary shelter from divorce. Those memories, like my boxed belongings, are secured to follow into what comes next.