Addams Family Values

So it turns out I'm moving tomorrow.

This fell upon me fast.

When I was looking at places last weekend, I told agents I wanted to move April 22nd. I'd have another paycheck coming in and I'd have time to organize myself for the move. The apartment I found had a special and in order to qualify for it, I'd have to take possession by the 14th. No big deal, I thought. I'll just move in the 22nd, because the 14th is Good Friday and no one is going to want to help me move Easter weekend. Then the leasing agent tells me on Monday that she's letting me have my apartment the 7th, tomorrow, at no additional charge. Okay. I revamped my plan to move this Sunday. After talking to my mother last night, she tells me that moving on Friday will be better for their schedule. My father and stepmother admit Friday would be better for them as well.

So I'm taking the day off tomorrow to move.

I am completely not prepared for this.

And if you promise not to tell anyone, I'll admit something to you. I didn't have any time to mentally adjust moving out from my father's house. I'm not only going to miss the home cooked meals, the maid, and driving my father's Mercedes convertible on the weekends, but I'm going to miss him and my step-mom as well. I've never lived with my father before. For the last 5 months, I learned more about him and my step-mom than I knew in my previous 25 years. It turns out they're good people. They were supportive of me with anything I wanted to do with my life. When I decided I'd rather live in Charleston than Atlanta and I went and stayed at the beach house and tried to get a job up there, they were all for it. When I was looking for an apartment here, they wanted to come with me and see what I was looking at, even though I've always chosen where I live on my own. While my mother is having a hernia over me living by myself in downtown Atlanta, my father and step-mother congratulate me. They tell me they're proud of me with everything I've accomplished since the disastrous events of last August.

I get along with them. Not once did they yell at me. Not when I drove over the flower pot or when after a night of drinking I parked my truck against the house.

We became a fixture in each other's lives for the first time ever. I don't want that to end when I move out, and I'm slightly afraid it will. We'll adopt new routines and I'll no longer be invited to the "other" family's outings.

It's going to require an effort on my part as well, one I'm willing to make. Visits with both sets of my parents have an expiration date of 3 hours ever since I was 18. 3 hours and I'm gone, any more time and I start getting anxiety attacks. Since I've been able to establish good memories with my father and step-mother, hopefully I'll feel compelled to visit more frequently and break the 3 hour barrier. I want to with them. I want to feel like a member of a family, even if I do have the Addams family.