This will be one of my final “catch up” posts-from here on out a majority of what I’ll cover will be written about as I experience it, rather than in hindsight.  I was starting to think I’d never catch up to present day, and now it feels a little like the movie Minority Report, where officers try to stop future events, and race to prevent time from catching up to the present (admittedly, that poor description did that movie no justice, but I digress.)

            Raleigh sits a mere 132 miles due south of Petersburg, VA-a distance close enough that soldiers marched it during the Revolutionary and Civil wars.  Since I’m currently living in NC’s capital city, that distance makes me one of the lucky ones.  I’ve also been fortunate that my parents still live in NC, and have been willing to let me use space in their house to store things.

            Before getting my duty station assignment, I decided that I wanted to go through a do-it-yourself move (DITY).  Just before my third year began, my law school detached from its parent university’s main campus, which was about 25 miles south of Raleigh.  I went through two different moves (one to a subletted apartment for a couple months, and then a second to the place I’m in now), and managed to shed a lot of excess belongings that I had accumulated over college and the first two years of law school.  I won’t lie and say I enjoyed the process of hauling stuff around, but the process of making a fresh start with my own sweat and work caught on with me.  It also gave me some experience in what it was like to cram everything you own into boxes, pick up, and reestablish yourself elsewhere.

            After finding out that I’d be at Ft. Stewart, the prospect of moving my belongings myself didn’t seem to be nearly as big of a challenge.  Starting in early December, I sketched out a plan in which I would store most of my stuff at my parents’ house and travel light to Ft. Lee and Charlottesville.  With the small gap in time between finishing in C-Ville and beginning DCC at Ft. Benning, my current plan is to head home to Greensboro, NC, rent a moving truck, and haul all of my belongings to Benning, where I’ll stow it in a public storage facility off-post until DCC is finished.  Since I share a place with three other roommates, I don’t have any huge items like a couch or kitchen table, which definitely helps things.  Sadly, that also means I’ll probably be living on pool floats for a couple weeks once I get to Georgia.

            Once I had a plan in place, I started to slowly bring carloads of stuff home with me when I’d head to visit my parents.  I kept a corner of my room reserved for the things that would travel with me, which includes uniforms, clothes, laptop, a small TV, a CD binder with some DVDs, and a video game system.  The idea is to have everything I need (plus a couple extras), and be able to quickly unpack and repack.  Since my other training experiences have all involved living in open bays with no more than a locker for space, the thought of having a room during the entire period (let alone a hotel room for large chunks of it) is a little weird.  I still have a small chunk of things to take back home, but there should be just enough time to get it all done.  For everything that’s stowed at my parents’, I’ve worked to minimize the costs of the move, since I’m only expecting reimbursement for my final move to Ft. Stewart.  I’ve hit up grocery stores and Wal-Marts for free larger boxes, which they typically end up crushing and recycling if they’re not claimed.  Other items have been stowed in those large plastic Rubbermaid containers you can find at any Target or Wal-Mart, although their cost adds up quickly.

            One thing I’m going to work to get more information on is the non-DITY moving process many of my classmates are going through.  With people coming from all over the country next week, this has been a huge issue that people have sought information on.  A lot of the talk has died down about it, which I assume means that people figured out the process.  I’ll keep everyone up to date on the tips and pitfalls I hear from them.