Moving to Oregon. The exodus continues. People all the time tell me, “oh yeah, moving’s one of those things that’s supposed to be one of the most stressful things you can go through in life.” I get it now. Finding boxes and wrapping up cereal bowls and plastic horses in sweaters, shoving them in and making a big stack is actually super easy. What’s hard is if your husband has a nervous breakdown about the fact that you actually sold the house to the nice young millionaire family and can’t have it back. And then finds out he needs a major back surgery to ratchet down another section of his back with plates and cages and screws, and won’t be able to move around much or drive in a car for months, and will move around weird when it’s all over. And that he needs all that done right away, like right now in the middle of the move. Or when you sell off so many years of your life in your driveway to aging surfers who carefully pick through each and every memory that’s laid out on the cracking cement and haggle over whether it’s worth three bucks or four. I think they also meant the weepy dinners and parties with beloved friends, cheers and toasts when you really realize how grateful you are for them being there for how many years? A lot of years of people and horses and dogs. You look at the card somebody gives you, the Thoreau quote says, “Go confidently in the direction of your dreams.” And then everybody starts crying all over again, wine sloshing over the solo cups and into the pie. That’s the thing they were talking about. Throwing boxes in the back of the truck is easy.