I have approximately one week until the closing on the sale of my mother’s house. For some reason, probably because the date kept being pushed back due to attorneys going on vacation, I developed a sort of lackadaisical mentality, as though the day would never come. Although I am naturally a neurotic, type-A personality, who does random shit like clean the area behind the base of the toilet and alphabetize her spice rack, I quickly adapted to our Trainspotting-esque living conditions. I can tell you with anal-retentive certainty that there is an empty box of Nerds (Simon’s,) three library books, and the wrapping paper from five Christmas gifts on the floor. I can also tell you with equal steadfastness that I will not be picking any of these items up off of the floor today, because I have adapted the mentality of, "We’ll do it before the closing."

Only now it’s before the closing. So I have to get up off of my ass and do something before a green baby starts crawling on my ceiling.

My broker was a good friend of my mother’s, so she calls to check up on me more often than most brokers do. Or perhaps I’m just flattering myself, after all, she’s aching for the closing just as much as I am since she can’t pick up her 4% commission until the papers are signed and the lawyers have given awkward man hugs or chest bumps or whatever it is that they do after they’ve done some maths and netted top dollar. Last night she called and proceeded to go through the list of things I need to do before vacating the premises. I scrawled notes as she yammered on. By the second page I started to feel as though I needed a Pepto shot with an Immodium chaser. Apparently my dog-whistle pitched "uh-huh"s gave away my panic.

"Now, honey," she said in a voice that let me know that she had children. "Don’t hesitate to call me if any of this makes you feel overwhelmed."

I’ve learned in sobriety that you have to ask for help, otherwise you risk really fucking yourself up. God knows that this situation strikes a nerve with me. Back when I was drinking I moved impulsively, leaving behind entire apartments filled with shit that I suddenly "didn’t need," along with social circles wondering if I’d died (an email from the director of a poetry group read, "Next time you decide to leave the state, tell someone.") When I see a cardboard box I start to get itchy. It’s as though the slow slope of the key coming off the keyring ignites some sort of reaction in me. I want to change my phone number, dye my hair, and pretend that NONE OF THIS EVER HAPPENED. Only this time around, nothing happened. Well, other than my mom dying, but that isn’t anything that moving to a different city can fix.

I’m not good at things like this, to put it mildly. Moving requires organization, which is fine when you’re talking about a project, such as writing the text for a website, or tracking edits on an article, but I lose my ability to focus once serious shit is involved. My eyes start involuntarily glazing over and I suddenly feel myself under the pressure of a very demanding nap schedule. But I can’t shy away from this. The family of four — one of which is an infant daughter named Ainsley, swear to God — is expecting an empty, "broom clean" house to move into. Until then, it’s a race to see if I can successfully get this shit done without knocking myself unconscious or going out and becoming a Lindsay Lohan impressionist.

At this point in reading you may be wondering, “What is it that you need to do that’s so goddamned demanding that it has you whining like a New Jersey housewife whose flight to Miami is delayed?” Here’s a taste.

- Dismantle a king-sized, wrought-iron bed frame, then throw out said frame and accompanying mattress and box spring. I should mention that all of these items are on the second floor of a very narrow two-story house.

- Go through a decade’s-worth of dried goods in two pantries. My mother was a hoarder. When I cleaned out the over-stocked freezer I discovered that there were batches of tomato sauce and cookies labeled from years before she moved. Meaning that she moved food with her in 1999. I can tell you just from standing on a chair and peeking that there is a bottle of ketchup whose color  and logo suggest that it’s been around since U2 was an indie band, and there’s a bottle of unopened A1 whose sheer presence is terrifying since my mother didn’t cook steak or burgers and I haven’t consumed red meat in nearly seven years.

- Choreographing a stranger coming by and picking up the rest of the furniture, including my mattress, while somehow preserving my ability to sleep and comfortably exist for the remaining forty-eight hours of life in this house.

- Cutting off and canceling all of the important stuff, like gas, mail, lights, camera, action. Due to the fact that the only time I can stop twitching with nerves is when I’m planted in front of the television watching CSI or LeBron James (in both situations the nervous tics are appropriate,) I don’t want to cut cable until the very end. Unfortunately I think I have to drop off all of the cable boxes at some undisclosed location, because cable companies live in an alternate, incomparably selfish universe, much like Paris Hilton and cats. 

- Orchestrate moving nineteen boxes and a stair-wary dog up five flights into my new apartment in a five hour window following the closing. It’s a walk-up. Also, figuring out how to get furniture delivered on a Saturday when my brand-spankin’-new super isn’t in the building. Hi! I’m your new tenant, here to inconvenience you from the get-go! Don’t mind the yelling! I do this all the time.

Of course, these are all what Simon commonly refers to as "white people problems." What he really means is that they’re insignificant, "luxury problems," if you will. I agree. But I look at my panic and dread as a positive thing. Six months ago my main complaints were the way chemo was useless, my mom’s ascetis had swollen her out of a wardrobe, and I didn’t know if we would be able to pay our mortgage while simultaneously trying to sustain her healthcare coverage since she couldn’t work. Those were problems. Moving furniture? Potatoes so small they couldn’t adequately feed dust mites. The fact that I’m popping an ulcer over what sort of couch could fit in a seven-foot-long one-bedroom apartment means that my stress level has actually gone down. Life has returned to its normal pace.

I’m always going to have complaints. Not only is it in my nature, but I think it’s part of the modern human condition. Life isn’t perfect unless you make a conscious effort to see it that way, and even then, it’s usually a blend of perception, positive visualization, meditation, and medication. So even though I can’t just "om" my way through the move, I can observe the simple fact that my inconveniences are now non-life-threatening. And although I would trade my easy problems for my mom back in a heartbeat, it’s good to know that when life goes on it doesn’t make too dramatic of a flourish. Unless, of course, you count an artichoke colored couch being hauled up a staircase by a five-foot-tall alcoholic.

Happy New Year. This one’s gonna be better.