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I’m stuck! And I can’t get up! Oh sorry about that. My brain automatically fills in the blank.

I am stuck though. As I scrolled down the reader this morning, I just could not get enthused about any of the stories that typically get me to pounding the keys with vigor.

It is easy to simply put it down to a temporary dead space, common to most writers, common to most people frankly. It’s not to the level of being existential, and it’ not depression. It’s not the blues.

I’m stuck. I wake up feeling stuck. It seems to wear off as the day drifts by, but it’s always there just beneath the surface.

And I know what it is.

In fact, I’ve known for some time.

It’s the horror, and the “oh, boy I really don’t want to do that” feeling one gets when one contemplates a major shift in life.

You see, as most of you know, we are gearing up to move. We don’t know exactly when. It could be this fall, which came as a bit of a shock, but there is a strong possibility that that will be the case. If, not then surely in the spring about this time.

And if it is the fall, then shortly the process must begin. And I am soooo not interested in the process.

The Contrarian and I firmly believed when we moved to the meadow in the fall of 1999, that this would be where we would end our lives. At least our functional lives. We could not foretell my growing dislike for cold and snow or my growing distaste for having to travel so far for mundane tasks. We could not have known that the winters would be longer and the snow deeper, and the tractor not enough to keep the lane open. We could not have anticipated the rain lasting throughout the summer, making it just awful and destroying our garden two years in a row.

It is not that I have not become pretty seasoned in moving. I’ve done it more times that I want to stop and count. Whole houses sometimes, and other times just apartments, not that there is a lot of difference. I know the routine.

I know it starts for me with a notebook that I start to list every single thing that must be done. No matter how minor, it’s listed. Until its pages long. It grows, until it seems impossible.

And then, you start with what can be done tomorrow, and then the next, and you separate what must be done on the last week, the last day. You cross them off as you go. You develop a “place” for all the stuff of moving, the addresses, the phone numbers, the papers that one must not lose.

Believe me, I’m very good at this.

Remember? I’m the one who makes a list of “things to do” in making Thanksgiving dinner. I don’t miss a beat.

Then why am I stuck?

Because, I’m on the precipice. I’m looking down on a plain that I know stretches for miles. I know the dangers, the  agonies, the roadblocks, the do-overs ahead. As long as I haven’t taken that first step, then I don’t have to face any of them.

Yet, the longer I delay, the more will have to be done each day to get it done. Even though there will be no “date” that must be met.

I just hate the idea of digging through years of accumulations and packing boxes. Heck, I hate the idea of acquiring the boxes! There is a temptation to just pack a bag and walk out the door, and start fresh. That would be nice. That would not be economical and thus it is not possible. And of course, I want a good many things that I love and that are useful.

We have talked through the major issues. The how to move our belongings, the how to move us. The what to do when we get there. How to search for a house, what to do about a car. The major things, as I said, we have discussed and made initial decisions about.

I just need a kick in the pants to get started.

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