The sun rose like a swollen blister on an already sweltering day. Even the birds seemed to chirp in half measures, as if they knew what was coming. I knew. i, Ronnie Hays, had moved more times than a traveling evangelist in tax season, and each time the hatred for the ritual burned hotter. Yet, there i was, my big bones draped in a tangle of sweat-stained Mardi Gras beads like some deranged Vegas all-you-can-eat buffet refugee.

Today wasn’t just another address change. This was the grand purge, the final shedding, a digital nomad’s vision-quest. Clothes, books, CD frisbees… remnants of a life lived on autopilot… tumbled out of the apartment in a chaotic avalanche. It was as if the past itself was getting the boot, shoved headfirst into cardboard boxes and plastic totes.

A chipped ceramic bobblehead, an unnervingly detailed souvenir from Ensenada, flew through the air, courtesy of a misplaced elbow, and shattered across the chipped front step. Its broken grin seemed to mock me. “So long, sucker!” it said, or maybe that was the mood gummies talking.

My hired helpers, Curly and Shemp, looked like they’d been hitting the juice. Or maybe they’d been dropped on their heads as babies; it was hard to tell sometimes. They moved with the jerky, haphazard energy of wind-up toys, fumbling boxes and tripping over each other. A symphony of grunts, curses, and breaking glass filled the air.

Somewhere in the middle of this three-ring circus, the couch got stuck in the doorway. Now, this isn’t your granny’s dainty loveseat… this is a monstrous beast of brown pleather, scarred from years of bachelorhood. It fought back with the tenacity of a cornered rhinoceros.

“Left! No, RIGHT! Pivot, you morons, PIVOT!” My voice croaked like a bullfrog at a Georgia pond. I was directing the orchestra of idiots, and the symphony was a disaster.

The couch, in a glorious act of defiance, ripped free of their grasp, taking a chunk of the door frame with it. It was official: the apartment was winning.

Exhausted and sweaty, i collapsed onto a folding chair, its metal legs threatening to give any minute, much like my sanity. Amidst the wreckage of my former life, with the Mardi Gras beads digging into my strained neck, i realized a startling truth (happens EVERY time). This ridiculous, back-breaking, mind-numbing chaos… it’s kind of exhilarating.

Like a wildfire scorching the forest floor, this move clears out the clutter of the past. I am, once again, reinvigorated, ready to take on the open road, leaner and meaner. Maybe, just maybe, this time i won’t need all this freaking junk again.

Then again, digital nomading means laundromats and shower bamboozles. I guess i’ll keep the beads… they’re not finished with me yet.

Onward through the fog… R.H.