Move

I am standing in the entrance of our new house, the door is ajar and Walid and his colleagues are walking in with boxes in their arms. They are working through ramadan which means they won't get to eat or drink until sundown. My duty is to check off all the numbered boxes and direct Walid and the rest where to deposit their loads. The parquet is covered with tape to protect it from the moving furniture and the house smells like fresh paint. White. Everything is white and stark. We hadn't really prepared for this day and we just keep telling the men to bring the boxes upstairs to avoid having to think it out clearly. The wind is blowing in the house and I am freezing. Box 2. Garage. Box 34. Check. Upstairs. Box 120. Small bedroom. Alistair is in the next room with another Allied International man struggling to get his TV and couches to fit in the sitting room. We had already argued about where to put the furniture and I decided just to let him do his own thing. The boxes keep coming in and I am sniffling, wiping my nose on my sweatshirt, and trying to keep warm. The heat hadn't been ready so the whole house is freezing and empty. It is the end of September and winter decided to come a couple of months early to Switzerland. Two weeks before I had turned 38. This was supposed to be a real exciting moment to finally move into the house we had bought months before and renovated. But I didn't feel anything. I just felt cold and scared. This wasn't my home. What was I doing moving to the suburbs in a four bedroom home? I had planned to live a couple of years in Switzerland and those years turned into five years. I managed to accumulate 158 boxes of stuff in those five years. The 158 boxes and this house were slowly suffocating me and pinning me to the ground. I felt trapped and unhappy.