Christmas came early for me this year.  After eight weeks of living out of two suitcases, it was nice to finally be reunited with all of my earthly possessions. At least in concept.

I feel like I’ve spent the better part of 2015 complaining about the moving process, so I’ll try not to do that so much here. I will say however, that I was not keen on taking delivery of my household goods all by myself. The symphony of movers breaking open crates and carrying hundreds of boxes into an empty new home is kinda the living version of Bolero. If you’ve ever moved before, you know what I’m talking about.

It starts off simply, with one box getting deposited in a room so that you, the owner, can quickly unshell its contents and send the packing paper and empty cardboard back out to the truck for disposal. Easy. And at the beginning, you can keep pace because it’s only a single flute playing a quiet and peaceful composition. But then, while your head is buried in that singular task, the unopened boxes have suddenly stacked up the wall– clarinets are clobbered by brass and strings. Your biggest pieces of furniture are being manhandled around tight corners and you have to stop what you’re doing and direct traffic. Hours have passed, and then you notice that cymbals and a bass drum are clashing around your head in one fantastic crescendo.

Everything comes to an unceremonious end when the moving crew chief is standing next to you with paperwork in triplicate that you are supposed to sign, affirming that everything is accounted for (or noted as broken). You scribble an illegible signature, the truck pulls away, and a new tide of crap– your crap– now covers the apartment.

This is moving.  And it’s no fun to do it on your own.

Luckily for me, my brother came in from America to help me unpack. We’re lucky because my dad is a retired airline pilot, and John could fly over on a non-revenue standby pass for next to nothing. And for anyone who knows my family, they know that John is a really great human being. If you ever saw one of those Jerry Springer t-shirts that said, “Steve Saved My Ass” then you’d understand how we feel about our baby brother. He’s laid back but proactive, and he delivers selfless assistance with our trademark New England sarcasm. Wicked helpful.

So John kind of oversaw the delivery process while I focused on unboxing my things. In came unassembled bed frames, broken furniture (there is always stuff that gets broken), and even my box of Christmas decorations and fake tree that I looked forward to putting up next year. I have no recollection of any of it coming into the house. John made my moving day infinitely more bearable, but it was still a long day for the both of us.

While trying to get my personal life sorted out in London, I’ve been doing double duty by attempting to get up to speed with my new job. As a Type A person, I endeavor to report to a new command and attempt to demonstrating some form of competence. I can’t say that I’m ever really successful. It’s hard to concentrate on anything when your life is in chaos at home, but nevertheless, I try. So while I allowed myself two days to get organized in my flat, on the third day I went back into the office and left my brother home to organize my mess.

I could tell you about all of the ingenious things that John managed to accomplish in my absence– like finding a DIY store and repairing a broken chair leg– or how he scavenged and dragged two wood pallets up the hill and broke them apart to fashion platforms for my beds–but there is one thing he did do that  caught me completely off guard. It was something that underscored not only how helpful John was in getting me settled in London, but it also showed how well he knows me.

When I got home from work on the third day, it was dark and gloomy. No big surprise considering that the winter sun sets at 4pm over here.  I turned on the lights and walked into my living room– the place that was previously a mess that I had no desire in tackling. While I was away, the landscape had completely changed:

With a transatlantic move going on, I had zero intention of decorating to celebrate the holiday season.  John’s first order of business was to break open my fake Christmas tree– the one we had purchased at 80% off in January at the Ocean State Job Lot in Falmouth. He trimmed my tree and set up all of my Christmas decorations around the living room. And he even put together my bookstands and various African furniture. He made my house feel like a home. And a Christmassy one at that.

To thank him for all the he had done, I did do my best to provide him with a bit of tourism in London. We went ice skating (a must considering John spends half of his life in hockey gear), we visited the major monuments, and did our version of Hallinan tourism on the cheap. Its was a great blend of work and play, and one that made this entire moving evolution probably the best I have ever experienced in my Navy career.

As a single chick with a job that has been living her life like a super bouncy ball, I can’t express enough how much I appreciate all of the support that my family and friends provide me. I mean, I could try to do this all on my own, but I am pretty sure that I would be breaking into my smuggled bottle of Green Hat Gin by the time the movers had pulled away from the sidewalk.

I don’t have sufficient words to express how grateful I am to my brother and sisters, and the network of friends who know me best and are always willing to come by and give my morale a boost.  Thanks to John– and everyone else who helped to get me over here (I’m looking at you Washington peeps too, Katie, Laurie, Bob and Christina).