As we head into July, you may notice an increase in U-Haul trucks, SUVs pulling trailers and pickup trucks stuffed with furniture. The end of summer is on the horizon and for many LSU students, so is the end of our leases.
In high school I dreamt about the day I would move out of my mother’s house. Whether to a dorm or an apartment, there was something increasingly appealing each day about having my own space.
Oh, how naïve I was when I imagined packing my most important belongings into boxes and moving them into my first apartment, where I could decide what goes on the walls, in the fridge, and most importantly – where to hide the things that should be hidden when my parent came to visit.
As I head into my fifth move in two years, I’m thankful that my mother never uprooted our household. I was blessed with a stability that many of my friends didn’t have, along with the gift of being able to return to the house I grew up in when things get too stressful in college.
I lived the first 17 years of my life in the same house prior to coming to Baton Rouge in the summer of 2012. My friends would tell me stories about their previous homes and neighborhoods and I was jealous. They had entire other lives, and all I knew was Ponchatoula.
But now I’m just unbelievably frustrated. I’ve packed up all of my things, loaded them into my car, and then unpacked them five separate times in two years. But I’m not even an hour from the house I grew up in.
That’s a total displacement of 45.5 miles.
When I was in high school I never imagined that I’d be on my fifth lease without leaving the state of Louisiana. It seems ridiculous that after having spent almost a month of my life packing and unpacking apartments, I’ve only skirted around LSU’s campus a few times.
Even with my fascination of all the different sizes of U-Haul boxes that were available and blissful ignorance of the pain in the ass that moving is, I never planned to move this much in college.
But some time after I moved into my new apartment, I would find myself on craigslist, dreaming about an apartment that was new, different and better.
Each time I moved I was able to improve my quality of life. First I just wanted to be away from Highland Road traffic. Then, I wanted a first floor apartment walking distance to campus. That decision forced me to sacrifice central air conditioning, a dishwasher and a washing machine.
And now I’ve found the perfect place – a first floor apartment, walking distance to campus, with central air conditioning, and a washer and dryer. Unfortunately, it’s located just off of Highland.
We can’t have it all. There will always be something about my apartment that I wish was different. But after spending my month between leases living at my mother’s house I am ready to be back in my own space.
I’ve acquired a set of skills that make each move easier, whether it be putting anything that isn’t glass into garbage bags, using clothing to pack dishes, or taking down doors to get couches into the ever-shrinking apartment doorways. While these have made it easier the fifth time around, it still doesn’t take away all the pains.
At this point I would rather have my friends sit on the floor when they come over than ever own a couch again.
Moving is an unavoidable and necessary evil. Even as I’m cursing the universe for allowing our trailer to come unhitched while traveling down the interstate on Sunday afternoon, I know I can’t stay at Tiger Manor forever.
But for now, I’m dreaming of locking myself and all of my things in my new apartment and never leaving it again.