Over the past week and a half, my entire life has been moving. It's partially a quirk of summer, when it seems like everyone is moving, and partially a fact of working at the library right now. Multiple departments across campus, including maintenance, the library, and TSC are prepping the building for a massive renovation slated to start in the beginning of June. By "prepping," I mean emptying the entirety of Beeghly Library, from books to chairs to random detritus -- and the random detritus regularly proved infinite.
Some such detritus had been sitting untouched for so long no one had a clue
how it got here. This is my personal favorite, the remnants of a blue iMac G3.
Though we began moving books over at the beginning of the semester, a series of hitches meant we were left with all books A-D still in the building, in addition to the reference, graphic novel, and children's book collections, and much of the archives. We were meant to have all of that out a week after graduation, and the pressure to achieve that goal was intense.
But... it didn't happen. As we kept working, we kept finding more and more pockets of clutter, and it seemed like we ended each day with more mess than we started. So Friday became Tuesday, and Tuesday became the next Friday. All the while I told myself, "Alright, this is the day. If I just work hard enough, we'll be out of here today, and tomorrow will be smooth sailing."
Needless to say, I was wrong every time. Worse yet, the stress from my repeated miscalculations made me feel a lot worse about the situation. I genuinely started to feel like I was failing everyone else by working too slow -- until I looked up and realized the sheer immensity of the mess, and that everyone else was behind, too.
Moving just the books in this picture would take about 2 hours at our average pace.
By the first missed deadline, there were 16 such loads of books in the basement alone.
After a few days of repeating this cycle, I started to realize a few things. First: the mess is infinite. It will never end, and measuring how much is left only makes the task longer. Continue on at a steady pace, and one day I will arrive to work pleasantly surprised by the emptiness of Beeghly. Second: whenever I forget the first point, I need only look around at how much everyone else has to do, and feel a little less stressed that I, uniquely, am delaying the renovation. The mess, a twenty-headed hydra, is doing that. I am just the poor squire sent to slay it.
As I mentioned in the beginning, I was moving dorms the same time that I was moving the library. This task was much more agonizing, maybe because I had to come home and do it after a day full of mess. Things at home were also more tense because this mess was mine, and therefore it was my responsibility to get rid of the excess.
I took to this relatively well, and ended up filling a couple of bags with donations and trash. My roommate had more trouble. After a few days of packing, I realized I had started picking up their things and asking if they wanted to keep it with the same cadence that my grandmother used with me when I was a kid. At the time it annoyed me, and I'm sure my roommate didn't love it either, but I have to admit the utility in the tactic now. We got rid of a lot of stuff.
... and also got some more, since we went thrifting directly after donating our things.
[I didn't get this, even though it was real leather, because I'm not a big fan of black, but still... isn't it cool?]
Moving my belongings was probably good, as it forced me to go through them and reconsider what I wanted and needed. That said, I really wish I had done that before I had to pack up everything I owned and haul it to a new apartment blocks away. So I learned a lesson here, too, which is to winnow your belongings before it's time to shove them in boxes. [There's definitely also something to be said for good organization systems, seeing as how I had fully forgotten about some of the things I found lurking in my own drawers, but I haven't learned that yet. Maybe later on the librarians will give me good tips for putting call numbers on sweaters :D]
All in all, it's been a pretty hectic few weeks. I'm not done with moving for the foreseeable future, as a few of my friends will need help in the coming months, but at least I will have some actionable advice to give them now.
The golf cart a TSC employee loaned us to help with moving. This little kindness
made our lives so, so much easier.