Our moving days have arrived after several days of sorting, organizing and prioritizing all of the worldly items we possess at Hana Mansion. If you aren’t familiar with military moves, also known as PCS, they occur in stages over the course of a number of days, not to mention the time spent attending mandatory briefings and completing scheduling paperwork. Today, movers will come and pack our express shipment, items like dishes and clothing that will arrive at our new location before the larger household goods shipment, which will be collected tomorrow.
To prepare, I’ve spent the past few days (with the help of Matt in the evenings) deciding what needs to go in each shipment, what will be packed in our suitcases for the U.S. and what needs to remain for Matt when he returns to finish up. We’ve hidden the items that don’t go with the movers in two of our closets because as we have learned from the past, they move rapidly and if you don’t pay attention they will pack everything in their path. In addition, the moving office, PSC (to throw out another confusing military acronym), gave us instructive signs in both English and Japanese to protect that which should not be wrapped and put in a box.
Moving is definitely not one of my favorite activities (I’ve done it about 10 times in the past decade), but the military movers do make it much easier. No carrying heavy boxes, no guiltily calling brothers and friends and offering bribes, no worrying about the logistics of how to get my giant purple couch through the doorway. Once the organizing is complete, I just have to sit back and sign paperwork as the professionals take half the time to do what would take me all day.
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