A few weeks ago, a friend of mine and my boyfriend's moved to Colorado. Of course the obvious first thought is, "Someone actually moved AWAY from Austin?" Indeed, this does seem to be a rather rare occurrence, as it's repeatedly been reported that between 120 and 150 people move TO Austin every day. But our friend is a different sort, he's from Colorado, and he's moving back there for a great and charitable purpose, hopefully I'll be able to share more about that soon. We'll miss him here, he was one of our first Austin friends, our faithful skeeball partner, and a great tour guide to some local places that are now some of our faves.
When he first told us he was moving back to Colorado, I immediately offered my assistance and my boyfriend's to help him move, I reminded him of my offer as his exit date loomed closer, and eventually he accepted. Now why would I do this? I despise moving, have done it way too often in the last few years, and definitely don't want to do it again anytime soon. And yet, that is exactly why I wanted to help, other than the obvious reason that he is our friend, and that is what friends do and such.
I wanted to help him move because I have had so many miserable moving experiences in my adult life, and I don't want anyone to experience relocating in the way that I have. I've been in the process of moving in which an ex-boyfriend/fiance helped me, which was fine except that my brother was also supposed to help with some of the heavy stuff that the ex and I couldn't carry alone, but my brother was a no-show due to having to work late unexpectedly. This resulted in my ex calling a work friend of his that owned a truck to help at the last minute, this friend showed up stumbling drunk and proceeded to drop multiple pieces of furniture down two flights of stairs, dropped/threw furniture from the second story onto the hood of my car and, against my wishes and after I pleaded with him to give me the keys, drove drunk and nearly wrecked the truck and trailer on the way to my new place. (He even stopped for more beer on the way.) I wouldn't let him inside the new place and told him to leave the trailer with my things and I'd find someone else to help move it all in. At this point it was 11:00 at night, and there was nobody I could find to help, so I called my Dad, who was already in bed and who DID NOT LIKE my ex. Needless to say, the next couple hours with two of them where VERY awkward. Finally I was moved in, but so much of my furniture was damaged, some of it was able to be repaired, some of it had to be replaced.
For my next move a couple years later, I decided that I was going to hire a moving company in order to avoid a repeat of the last experience. However, several of my colleagues at work insisted that they would be happy to help, that there was no need to pay for a moving service, and they would all just pitch in and get it done in a few hours. But when the weekend of the move came around, not a single one of them followed through, all had made other plans. So I was stuck with struggling to find a moving company at the last second that was actually available, and the short notice ended up costing me much more than if I had just booked in advance like I had planned to all along.
Since then, I've moved around a lot for work, and completed all those moves with my own two hands, minus the furniture, which was in storage. Moving by yourself is difficult and exhausting, but much easier than dealing with the fiascos I've experienced.
I've also had some great moving experiences since then, and come across some wonderful and kind people that went above and beyond for me. When I moved down to south Florida for a few months, I brought all of my furniture that was in storage with me. My father and brother helped me load the truck on Thanksgiving Day, and then when I arrived at my destination, my brother-in-law had arranged for him and four of his friends, whom I barely knew and who had agreed to help simply because they were friends of my brother-in-law, to unload and carry everything up two flights of stairs. When we moved to Austin, my boyfriend and I needed help with a few large items that I couldn't lift, and a co-worker of mine agreed to help for no payment other than a free dinner. When he arrived, he not only helped with the large items, but stayed to help unpack the entire truck.
When I have to move again one day, I don't want to count on luck to bring me a good experience. I've had a lot of moves that went smoothly and in which I've had plenty of help. But I've had too many negative experiences to pretend that everything always works out. So when my friend needed help moving, I jumped at the chance to improve my moving karma by helping him out. Hopefully, if I help enough people pack and move, when the time comes for me to relocate, there will be someone to help me.
Of course, I'll have to breathalyze them first.
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