Moving In

Moving In


The roaches always came out the first night, skittering in the dark as we lay on our mattresses flung across the floor. Our belongings hadn’t caught up with us yet, the cardboard boxes following us from one duty station to the next, our identities neatly wrapped and taped up all over again. We had scrubbed and mopped all day, but the armored residents had been there longer than we had and they wouldn’t give up their territory without a fight.

It was the same on every moving day, a succession of agonizing upheavals for my siblings and me. New schools, new friends, new houses, a carousel of experiences that affected each of us differently, it seems. To me as the middle child (which may or may not have anything to do with it, I’m done examining that), a new dwelling whose walls echoed with the memories of dozens of previous tenants was one thing. A new school, however, was horrifying. Give me roaches any day, but all those eyes and then the whispers as I was introduced yet again as “the new girl,” my blue-framed eyeglasses giving them more to snicker about as I slunk to the designated desk? It was just too much for me.

I wonder if adults ever think about this as they traipse across the world fulfilling their dreams or sense of duty, dragging their children along with them like suitcases, bits and pieces of their lives spilling out along the way.

At first, I reached out to new friends, usually another girl who didn’t fit into the puzzle of her peers any more than I did. We would bond as best we could, misfits who stuck out like sore thumbs when all we wanted was to blend into the scuffed woodwork, unnoticed except by each other. By the time I reached adolescence, a minefield in itself, I succumbed to the pain and loneliness of leaving newly minted friends behind yet again. The attitude of “Out of sight, out of mind” cruelly slapped me down too many times to allow my life to remain open to such continuous horror.

I spoke little, either at home or in school, and wandered ghost-like through the hallways of high school. College was a blur of gymnasium-sized classes, but at least I wasn’t expected to participate other than to occupy a place on the seating chart. It didn’t really have to be me in the seat, and often it wasn’t, because I didn’t know who I was from one day to the next. I often changed clothes four or fives times a day trying to find out. My soul today yearns to revisit those lost opportunities for personal expression, the give and take of sharing opinions and glimpses into another’s heart and mind.

My days of silence are over, though. I have finally joined the flow of life rather than remain an obstacle around which it meanders. My own daughter grew up in one house, the tree in the front yard growing as she did over the years. The marks where she hammered wooden steps into its bark are still there, although she has moved on herself, a young woman now with her own life. I’ve managed to move on, taking the little girl on the mattress by the hand, the one who listened in fright to the demons skittering around her family on the floor whenever they moved in.

Too Much Information

First it was answering machines. Then it progressed to cell phones, email, and texting. The idea that we must be accessible 24/7 has quickly become accepted in our culture. But is it helpful? Is it even healthy?

My daughter is 25 years old and moves among a group of friends who maintain contact through texting one another all day. They are representative of many young people, often beginning as early as pre-teens. They work or go to school (often both), but the texting never stops, regardless of whether they are “on the clock” or in a classroom. Employers are naturally concerned about the level of inattention of their employees. Professors and other teachers have to contend with the same thing.

Also, the texts perpetuate drama and gossip that might have died a natural death without this constant stream of discussion.

It seems that personal relationships aren’t being strengthened, either, with this ability to maintain constant contact. I’ve seen young women become hypersensitive to the lack of an immediate return of a text message. They react as if their boyfriends don’t like them any more if their text isn’t returned immediately. The second guessing begins: “Is he with someone else? Why isn’t he answering me? What’s wrong?” This behavior is unrealistic and destructive to relationships; yet it is the norm among young people today.

On a larger scale we also see this with the ever-present media coverage of minutia relating to just about everything, even if it isn’t newsworthy. Do I really need to know what the President’s favorite cheeseburger is or how many cattle he has on his ranch? Or who the latest hot entertainer was seen with over the weekend? I can’t help but think our government would run more efficiently if allowed to churn in its own machinations without our knowing truly unimportant details along the way. Yes, in a democracy we need to be informed about our representatives and their political ideas and stances, but we don’t need to know what they wore or where they went to lunch with whom. This over-indulgence of media coverage lends itself to the creation of the news instead of merely reporting it.

It’s all simply too much information.