August 1999 – I packed my bags and loaded up my parents’ car to move into my first dorm in New York.
May 2000 – I packed up the contents of my dorm room and moved everything back into my parents’ house in Maryland.
August 2000 – I again packed bags and loaded up the car to move into my second dorm in New York.
December 2000 – I again packed everything up and moved it all back to Maryland.
January 2001 – Just a few weeks later, I moved it all back into my first apartment in New York.
July 2001 – While I was in Israel, my parents had to move everything out of my first apartment and into my second apartment in New York.
June 2003 – I actually lasted almost two full years in one place! But then I moved everything back to Maryland. Note: by this time, my belongings and acquisitions had grown to fill an entire apartment, and only a moving van could transport all my stuff.
July 2004 – I packed two bags and moved to Baka, Jerusalem, leaving the rest of my stuff in boxes.
March 2005 – My lease ended and I hired a moving company to get all my furniture and things to a new apartment in the center of town.
April 2006 – I ditched that shitty apartment in the sweet location and hired the very same moving company to move me and way more furniture to Tel Aviv.
Today – I love my apartment. I love my neighborhood. I get along just fine with my roommate. I don’t even have one bad word for my landlord! Today we agreed (verbally) to sign another contract for the next year. That means I have a place to live until April 2008, and that place is this place. I am so happy to be at home!
Jews move. It’s the lech lecha thing.
Congrats! I am in the middle of a should-I-stay-or-should-I-go dilema, and the thought of all those boxes is pushing much closer to stay. I only moved in December.