Thursday 12 March 2009

I suppose people should move every three decades or so

So, having lost at Ontario's Landlord-Tenant Board and then at Divisional Court, it seems I'm outta here by the end of the month.

I have been evicted.

(I don't blog on personal stuff. There was some interest in my fight elsewhere though, so I hope others will be patient while I bring those people up to date. I may blog on the eviction fight later. It was very instructive.)

I moved here when I was a student and never saw a reason to leave. (Rent control, while it lasted, was a pretty good reason to stay, too.) I moved a lot as a child and young adult, so it was a whole new thing for me to have a home of my own.

I moved in with very little. But I seem to have accumulated quite a bit of shit.

A few days ago, I did clothes. I'm pretty good about tossing stuff that I don't wear, that doesn't fit, or that was a mistake to begin with, so that wasn't too bad.

I did books a couple of weeks ago. Again, I'm pretty good about recycling those too.

Today, though, I did paper. I sorted and shredded a whack of it a few months ago, but today I got into deep storage.

Yowza.

Business records from twenty years ago. Peculiar correspondence found in a file helpfully labelled 'Peculiar Correspondence'. Letters and postcards and old employee photo IDs.

A novel I wrote twenty years ago. Short stories, some finished, some now incomprehensible. Thank the goddess -- no poetry.

Almost three decades of my life.

I'm exhausted. And I'm not done.

15 comments:

fern hill said...

Dat you, Toe? (I ditched the other comment as instructed.)

Thanks for the hugs. It might be a while before I tell the tale.

Anonymous said...

Oof.... does it feel good to purge, at least? Even a little?

Sorry about the eviction. That bites.

Anonymous said...

Is okay, I can wait. Yeah its me, I don't understand all of the profile choices and I forget how to change google(s) account name. But will...soon...sometime...maybe. I'm going backwards instead of forwards with techie shit..but you know that, ha!

Hugs again, hope you find a splendid place!

fern hill said...

Miss Vicky: yes, it does feel good. I'm going to be travelling much lighter. Not as light as when I was a student, but much lighter.

Toe: You can't be more of a technodolt than I am. I have only one account. I gotta Keep It Simple.

Beijing York said...

Hugs fern. Moving is traumatic enough as is but under your circumstances, it's frustrating and heart breaking. Maybe I should rip off Harper's face on my voodoo doll and replace it with one for the slimy scumlord.

JJ said...

OMG, fern hill, sorry to hear that, what a bummer! But there can't be anything more frustrating than the Not Knowing, and that at least is over. Now you know, you're not hanging in limbo, and you're free to move on.

Don't think of it as being evicted, think of it as being set free.

(((hugs)))

sassy said...

Well, after so many years of having a good tenant like yourself, it is probably time for your landlord to have a tenant from hell. Your move to a better situation will allow that to happen.

fern hill said...

That has definitely crossed my mind, sassy.

I'd like to believe in this-life karma, also known as 'what goes round, comes round'.

fern hill said...

Beijing: Don't. Stpehen Harper deserves all the bad voodoo he can get.

JJ: Yes, the Not Knowing is over. But the Freedom will come at twice my former rent.

Thanks, all.

deBeauxOs said...

You wrote a novel?

Maybe we can serialize it at DAMMIT JANET!

Antonia Z said...

There's an old Jewish curse, translated from Yiddish roughly like this: May you move every week.
Moving is the worst but purging is good. I recently went through 20 years of stuff, just like you, and I kind of rediscovered myself.
One thing that did piss me off is seeing old paycheques and bills and realizing how my salary has, in effect, nosedived over the past decade or so, despite marginal increases.
I feel terrible about your rent doubling. That has got to be a blow.
I hope you don't stop blogging as you deal with this.
Hugs!

fern hill said...

dBO: NO.

Antonia: Thanks. My experience with different sorts of purging leads me to think it'll feel better when it's over. And it's not over yet. About the money: yes. For some things I do, I'm getting exactly the hourly rate I got 20 years ago. That's just fucking wrong.

Chrystal Ocean said...

Bloody awful, especially the doubling of rent. Am curious about the story behind this mess. Is it over at BnR?

the regina mom said...

Thanks for the update, fern, as awful as it is. Moving is one of the most stressful things. EVER! My heart's with you.

When we moved into this shack, I informed the kids that I wasn't moving out until they moved me into the old folks home! I've since amended that to add, and I'm too weak to fight you every step of the way!!!

Totally sux that you lost the appeals, that the wealthy win. Again. But that seems to be the way in Canuckistan these days, eh?

fern hill said...

Chrystal Ocean: Some of it is somewhere at BnR. Email me (email in my profile) and I'll give you a run-down of events. (I couldn't find an email for you at your blog. . .)

For the others, I will post the story. Just not for a while yet.

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