RiverWoods Blog: Moving Day Memories

“But it’s the first time in 50 years that we haven’t lived in a house of our own.”

The boxes keep coming in: boxes of books, boxes of clothes, boxes of who knows what.

Just by looking around we get that dead-certain feeling that it won’t all fit.

We feel smart having reserved a RiverWoods guest room to sleep in after moving day is over. (Oh, for a nap right now.)

One question keeps ringing through the apartment.

“Where do you want this?”  “Where do you want this?”  “Where do you want this?’

“I don’t know” is not an acceptable answer.   The good thing is: it’s a multiple choice question with only three right answers:  The living room, the small bedroom, the big bedroom.

“This is your home,” I keep telling myself.  And myself says,” no, home is 180 miles away in Wilton, CT”

As the pile of cartons begins to build a Great Wall of China in front of our apartment, neighbors drop by.  They’re eager to make us feel at home.

They’ve been through it all.  Hardly blinking as the parade of moving men keep the mystery boxes and crates coming along with the piano, the armoire, ten chairs.

Yes, ten chairs.

The hospitality therapy starts working.  Our fellow RiverWoodsers have all been through it.  It’s a comfort to have them around. An antidote to the chaos.

“It took me months to get it all sorted out” says one.

“It took me years,” says another.

Still another refuses to be topped.  “You have your whole life to get settled.”

That makes me feel happy.  That makes me feel sad.  But I know now Lydia and I are not alone in our feelings.

Later, in the hall from Crawford to the dining room, we meet a perky woman in her 90s.

Traveling at the legal limit for scooters, she zips by us in the passing lane. But not before she turns and says, “I love this place.  They won’t let you die here.”

That settles it.  I know now.

In my head I hear the persistent voice of the girl inside our GPS,

“You have reached your destination.”  We’re home at RiverWoods.