Moving
always has its challenges. Along with divorce, marriage and
pregnancy, this aspect of everyday life is fraught with stress and conflict.
Ah, conflict! A word we all recognize in our search for writing tools. Without
conflict, there is no story and certainly no point to the telling.
Humans grow and achieve, discover and innovate through
conflict—the confronting and defeating of discouraging circumstances gives us
opportunities to grow and achieve, find solutions and solve problems. Without
conflict, testing or opposition, we tend to wallow in the marshmallow world of
comfort zones.
When I moved earlier this year from the sunny shores to the
high plains, I felt unnerved and insecure—out of my element. At the same time,
excited and expectant of great things. Despite that trepidation and expectation,
I was not prepared for the common realities of moving into an empty house with
very little furnishings in my own possession.
One significant missing element was a refrigerator. The
first few hours, the next day, were no problem. But with milk, yogurt, cream
and mayonnaise in the picture, a cooler was the first choice because the fridge
was scheduled for delivery in two weeks. While a cooler is fine on a picnic and
great for the tailgate party, keeping the volatile mixture of raw eggs and oil
at a safe temperature required much more than a bag of ice and a thin layer of Styrofoam.
Lightbulb moment. This may be the high plains but there’s
snow in the front yard.
Lightbulb flickers. Going outside every time a sandwich was on
order when the temperature had dropped to 4° below began to wear thin. But one
of the beauties of living in a small city in the high plains in the mountainous
Midwest are the people. We learned that our appliance was delayed another few
weeks. I presented my case. The manager of the local appliance store has
provided a brand new fridge as a loaner until the one purchased makes its way
to the empty space in my kitchen.
