A few days before my move, I had a huge pile of items at the end of my driveway to be picked up for donation.  My neighbour had requested to take and sell everything in the retail store where he volunteers for the SPCA (The Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals). They came around 4:00 p.m. on Tuesday, June 23, but said their truck was full and would come back to get the items in the evening.  They never returned.  I called my neighbour the next morning and he said his wife was on her way to my place.  I  helped her load her van and she said she would be back for the rest.  Her husband called me shortly after saying their warehouse was full and couldn’t take anything further.  I was left scrambling.  I called a couple of other organizations but it was too late to get a truck to come and pick up everything.

My 62-year old girlfriend came over to help with last minute items.  She normally drives a tiny antique vehicle but foresight had her drive her pick up truck instead and she brought a flat dolly. We decided to work for a couple of hours around my house until my daughter got home from school.  Then we loaded her truck full to take to the Salvation Army. They informed us they didn’t accept donations past 4:00 p.m. They did us a favour and took some things but it was a common complaint that they didn’t have enough storage for all the donated items and were spending too much money to dump what didn’t sell.  We dropped other items in some donation boxes along the way but returned to my home with still a lot of things plus what remained at the foot of my driveway.  Furniture and a large commercial steel clothing rack included.

Another neighbour, who came by several times to see if I had found my 6-man tent to sell, came by again.  I told Kevin that if he would take everything at the end of my driveway away in his truck I would go into my garage right now and find the tent and he could have it for free.  He agreed! I found the tent and helped him load everything into his truck. It was a huge job and I was so grateful.  It was also a wasted day pulling me away from what I had planned and I started to panic as I had the movers coming the next morning.

The moving company was supposed to come to my place in advance to estimate the time, manpower required, vehicles needed and cost to move me.  They cancelled twice and called the day before to just say they would arrive at 8:30 for the move.  They had estimated 5 hours.  2 young guys showed up with a small trailer.

Complicating the move was my new place.  It had 23 stairs to climb to enter through the front.  The back entrance had a 9% grade climb and another 6 steps up with railings on both sides leading to a back deck.  There was also a heat wave.

My new landlord feared the deck was going to collapse with the weight of all the boxes and furniture the movers placed on it.

Towards the end of the first day the owner came with 2 more men to help but it became apparent at the end of Day 1 that my move was going to continue into the next day.  The problem was that this is the busiest move time of the year and their movers and trailers were already booked.

The movers didn’t show up until noon the next day and the owner came back with them.  The goal was just to get my stuff out of the house before 5:00 p.m., closing time.  My girlfriend arrived to help with her truck and horse trailer and we started to pile things in ourselves.  We had initially planned to take these items to consignment and auction but with the heat of the day and now the need to just move everything off the property I purchased a storage locker.  My girlfriends took everything to the storage locker but misread the lettering on the building.  They pulled up to the wrong building and unloaded everything before realizing they were in the wrong location.  They had to reload the trailer, move to the correct location and then unload again putting everything in the storage locker. My movers went to help them.

Two dance moms and 2 of my neighbour friends showed up to help move my stuff out and to clean up each room as the items left.  One of the dance moms called her dad to come over with his pick up truck to haul away all the garbage.  He loves red wine and I had just put 12 bottles that my ex had left behind into recycle liquor bags that had the bottle slots in them.  I handed them over to him as a thank you.  He said it was too generous, more than enough payment, and he was very happy to help me.

My friends emptied the contents of my fridge (one friend took everything over and put it in my new fridge). I let everyone take whatever they wanted in the way of food, alcohol, and contents.

My lawyer contacted me to say that the funds from the buyers hadn’t been transferred in time to make the payout of our mortgage to the bank so now we were going to incur 3 days of interest.

Even though the new owners told me directly they weren’t moving in the day of the close but instead were staying at a hotel and moving in the next morning, they still showed with their realtor and wanted to walk through the house. My realtor confirmed they had made other arrangements but that they were still going to come by even though she gave them a heads up that we were not moved out yet. Only their realtor walked through. I was in tears and she put her arm around me saying these things happen.

At 8:30 p.m. after the movers took the last load that would fit in their trailer, I just wanted to go and see my daughter dressed up for her grad dinner.  I knew a bus was picking them up at 11:00 p.m. to take them to a surprise location for the rest of their party.  I drove to her school where the dinner was being catered.  I hadn’t showered. My hair was in a half bun, half pony tail falling out in places and my clothes were sweaty, dirty and wet after I just dumped a cleaning bucket in the sink but most of the water fell on me instead.

I declined to attend the dinner. I wouldn’t have been able to make it anyway with the move continuing past our close time but my daughter had been quite rude, mean and disrespectful to me.  I heard her dad in everything she said.  I am at the stage in my life now that I do not allow anyone to treat me in this manner. It took counselors, lawyers, friends, family and even our arbitrator to point out to me that I was an abused woman and that my ex had and continues to treat me in an abusive manner that is not acceptable.  When I heard my daughter parrot her father in how he speaks to me and the content of her words to me, I recognized it immediately and said, “No, that is not okay.” 

My daughter could have apologized after knowing my position but she did not chose to do this. I still wanted to see her and wish her well. I found her and took a few photos. My ex had already left to take my younger daughter back to our house. He had picked her up to go to the grad dinner and he took the cheating co-worker to our daughter’s grad when I let him know I would not be attending.  He told me he was going to return the ticket for a refund.  He is still trying to cover up his affair and make like it isn’t continuing on. My younger daughter did tell me that she hit the adulteress in the face with a tree branch that she had pulled and let swing back while they were at my daughter’s grad photo session.

I returned back to the house that still had some boxes for the movers to take. Everything was in the garage so I was now able to ensure the whole house was clean before leaving. My younger daughter and I stayed until 12:45 a.m. We packed up the car and took the pets to our new home. It had been a very stressful 2 days for them being placed in a bedroom in our suite during the move. After I dropped off my daughter and the pets I returned for another load of items (pet items, cleaning products, etc.) By the time I got back with my last load the movers were at my new place setting up our beds. They left at 2:45 a.m. I went to bed at 3:00 a.m.

I woke up at 4:41 a.m. and was back at my old place by 5:00 a.m. I wanted to sweep out the garage and I had bags of garbage to load and stuff into my car. I drove to a garbage dump that I didn’t even know existed until the day before. It is very close to my house. It was 6:00 a.m. There was a guy walking outside the facility and when I saw the recycling sign I asked him if they only took recycle items. He said they took everything. I asked when it opened and he said, “8:00 a.m.” I sighed and said I guess I would come back at 8. It was hot and I had garbage containing food, cat litter, dog poop that I had just picked up from the yard, etc. Turns out he was the owner and he offered to open 2 hours early just so I could dump everything! I was so grateful. I told him my story when I went to pay and he was so kind. He said, “I wondered why a pretty girl in a sports car packed to the gills with garbage was looking for a dump at this hour in the morning.” I knew I looked anything but pretty!!!!!!

I was so stiff and sore. I was sunburned. I had blisters, splinters, callouses, cuts and bruises all over me. I had been operating on 2 -3 hours max of sleep every night for a week. I was emotionally drained too. Phase One was done though. I was out of my old house and so glad to have it out of my life. It held nothing for me any longer. I was right to hold onto it for as long as I did for the sake of my girls and we were rewarded with getting almost our full asking price as soon as it was listed but it became just another area where my ex had control over my life. It was just a house, not the home and memories I had once created there, and I was completely done with it.

My ex was happy to see me struggle through the move and to not lift a finger to help. I let him know we were going to be in breach of the contract and his text back to me was that it wasn’t his issue. He didn’t care that he left everything of his behind except for what he came back for when he initially left–golf clubs, hockey bag, his hockey card binder with what he said before had about $10,000 worth of cards in it, and a brand new, $280 bike rack with trailer hitch, he said he gave to his boss (I still had the receipt and could have returned it). His goal was to bury me under as much burden as he could.

But it backfired. It made me stronger. It confirmed that I can do anything on my own with God’s help. It confirmed that I have endless support from so many different people in my life including strangers (that is how God works to show you who is really in control). It confirmed that my life is way better off with my ex out of it. He did as little as possible to help me when he was in my life and even though the house closing was his legal obligation too and he had so much of his own stuff to move from the property and should have been responsible for moving family items that neither of us wanted or had room in our new places for as well but he was a no-show on every level. He even tried to sabotage my efforts and take the girls out to a movie instead of them helping me just 2 days before the move date.

I am so built up and freer than I have been in a very long time. My ex is becoming dust on the road of life that is my journey. This was just one stop along of the way that I won’t be returning to again.