2003-05-23 - 9:05 p.m.

My mother is trying to sell the house, so she and my father can buy a condo and have no mortgage and instantly become elderly. Never mind that we built this house new and have only been here for three years, never mind that it seems we haven't given the paint time to dry - we are moving. Actually, I have standing plans to move to Boston in July, so I would have had to start packing anyway, but I wasn't planning on coming home from nine hours of cleaning rooms .

See, my mom wanted me to tidy up my room to look nice for the open house this weekend, so she had me move out my tv and computer and stereo and videocassettes and shelving and tapes and CDs and desk, because apparantly, they clutter up my room and prospective house buyers don't actually want to think anyone *lives* there.

I've always hated moving. We've moved house, counting rentals, five times during my childhood, and each time it's been unpleasent. Add that to the general schlepping I've had to do to and from school and my hatred of moving has only been increased. And I've accumulated so much stuff over the years - mind you, half of it is books, but I've still got quite a lot of things boxed up in the attic. It's a trait passed directly down to me from my father and grandfather, this need to collect boxes of paperclips and business cards and letters, to build a protective shell of cast-off items around us. My mother does not fit in this mold - she's the kind to surprise my father and I in the middle of a chapter, or a nap, or a television show, holding up something of ours and asking, "Can I throw this away?"

So it's good I'm getting my own place. I need my own place, so I can organize this detritus. I like to be neat and clean and organized, and it's difficult to do that when I've only got a small room to do it in, and I'm constantly being told to clean it up and get rid of more of my stuff, because they're selling the house! and even though my room is clean and neat and organized, it still has too much *stuff*. And for some reason, I don't like my mother pawing through the stuff I do have, because I've still got the residual fear that she'll be all critical at me and make me throw it away.

And I also feel like I'm being pushed out here. I mean, I am 23, and I am moving out, but I've still got a month. And it's not as if I won't leave if I'm not made to. I'd just like some kind of feeling of home, some kind of space of my own.