It’s such a common thing that freshmen go through before they start classes, and it also happens to be the one thing I never thought I’d end up doing: move. I’ve always planned on staying at home when I go to university, and Ryerson’s location makes that so easy to do if you live in Toronto. Believe it or not, the TTC actually isn’t so bad – comparatively. There was one thing I never saw coming, however: I had the opportunity to take a gap year and move down to Florida. It was an amazing experience, but it changed one big thing for me. I now need to pack.

It doesn’t sound like much, I know, but last July, I didn’t bring much with me when I moved. All of it was capable of fitting in the car, (though it was a lot like playing Tetris), but it was really easy to decide what I was going to bring. I was bringing my shorts and t-shirts – that much was a no-brainer for the Florida climate. My bed? Not so much, considering that it was a loft bed that I’ve had since I was ten years old, and it wouldn’t fit in the car even if I had wanted it to. I brought my sewing machine because I thought I was going to use it. Spoiler alert, I didn’t touch it once, unless you count moving it from the box I brought it in to the bottom shelf in the Ikea desk I put together while having the premiere of Sharknado 3 on in the background.

Aside from last year, I’ve moved a couple of times in the past but I was too young to remember it or be of any real help. So, this is an almost entirely new experience to me. A couple of weeks ago I tried to make some headway by getting the boxes we’d had lying around and filling them up with things I thought I wouldn’t need before moving, but a lot of it has since come unpacked.

This is all that’s stayed packed, which just goes to show that I have a lot more work ahead of me.

I don’t know what it is, but for some reason I’ve just kept hitting this roadblock when it comes to packing. I want to get it done so that I don’t end up with half an apartment to pack the day that we leave, but suddenly I feel like I need that pair of jeans (even though I have three, and can afford to pack two of them), and I need those books (I’m currently in the middle of reading A Song of Ice and Fire: Book One, so there’s a good chance that I won’t read Harry Potter before we get home). Sitting on my sofa, I can see at least fifteen things I can personally guarantee I will not be using over the next couple of days, and when I get close to packing it I think of something that makes me not want to pack it.

It is way too humid to wear makeup on a regular basis in Florida – do I really need that one shade of blush that I never wear anyway?

The irony doesn’t escape me – I had no trouble packing what I needed for over a year away from home, and now I’m less than the picture of efficient packing to go home to where all the rest of my stuff is. When I was super chill about leaving for Florida, my mom was rushing around wondering if it was too wild an adventure, and I kept having to tell her, “relax, it’s just a thing that’s happening.”

Theories: I enjoyed packing so much, I wanted to do it multiple times; I started too early because I was too excited to go home and get to school, but it was unreasonable to be without my stuff so long; I have no idea what I am doing, and need to pack and move and pack and move a few times before I get good at it; it’s not the space in my suitcase that’s the problem, but the space in my head. I think that’s probably the reason. Maybe because I still had a work schedule, when I had one foot across the border, the other one was still firmly stuck in Florida. We’ll see how that one works out, because today’s my last day of work and hopefully I’ll be able to completely wrap my head around the idea of moving.

Let’s hope that’s true – wish me luck, and I’ll think positive thoughts for you and your packing on the #RoadToRyerson!