Yvonne Battle-Felton

I don’t tend to view moves emotionally. In my experience, they have always been for positive reasons—even if I didn’t understand them at the time.

As an adult, I’ve been blissfully emotionally and physically unavailable throughout my moves. I can barely remember my move to Maryland over 15 years ago. For my move from my first townhouse to a townhouse with my then-boyfriend (and now ex husband) I was physically unavailable—I was at work.

I was nine months pregnant for the move from the townhouse to our home. Packing and unpacking, moving, rearranging, these things are handled, typically, ideally, not by me.

Today, we are in the final stages of closing the 23rd floor. Clients are settled into their new offices on the 27th floor. Technology is uninstalled. Furniture is moved out.

The furniture move, despite requiring little actual physical energy—from me—was emotionally exhaustive. Selecting a mover, while contingent on estimates and availability—became a matter of which moving company seemed to care most about the move.

Yesterday a fleet of movers came to haul, crate and remove remnants of my past seven years.

Seven years ago, I was a student at community college.

Today, I have my Master’s degree and I am one month away from teaching my first writing class at Anne Arundel Community College.

I am one step further on my writer’s path, wherever it leads; I’m getting closer every day.