‘Moving home alone: My labours of Hercules in decluttering and downsizing’

It’s a heck of a year! So far, my family and acquaintances have been through a lot. Personally, I had been caregiving for an octogenarian for for more than 20 years. I agreed to keep him out of a nursing home, for as long as I could.

Some plans do not work, the ancient mariner trundled off to his nursing home, where he joined his happy hunting ground. His good ole days are still to be!

I like to think fondly of a football heaven, where all our deceased are reunited with their wives, old dogs, and utes. As well, our team always wins!

It’s time for me to move on now; the unit is a deceased estate and shall be sold.

Despite lockdowns, I have secured a pad in the district, to dwell as a single woman still, in first world living.

Some things no one else can do for you, you have to manage by yourself. I shall sit down for a minute, writing.

At the time of this writing, it was exactly two weeks until the moving van arrived. Moving on now, my labours of Hercules included emptying all the cupboards, packing stuff into cardboard boxes. Job done there, only basic necessities and a few clothes left.

I drew up a battle plan. How to get a landline and the internet connected. I browsed and read some horror stories.

Being a loyal telco customer, I tried to sign in with their registration login. Wrong! Lucky I started early.

After failing to gain ID at my phone server, this loyal client bravely battled with the telco, who had my name, the geriatric’s date of birth, and his daughter’s phone number. A failure to communicate. I phoned, texted, totally blooped on phone ID registration. A week later though, it was all sorted.

I received an email with my email, my birth date, my phone number at my new address, and a promise of the internet. With a single login to all I’ll ever need to access my services. That is the plan.

What next? Right, I thought, no one wants snail mail address changes, must join the digital world. I live in Victoria, Australia so I made RACV and Vicroads accounts. Compared to the telco, that was not too hard at all. In fact, Vicroads reminded me of a Mafia application form I read once: “Whatsa u name?” Whatsa u car?” “Da Bigga or da little one?” “I gotta da violin case!” (Part of my musical baggage). “Congratulations! You joina da Vicroads!”

Phew. A future labour of Hercules is to change all my addresses with my new digital buddies. My Labours of Hercules! Moving on … Wish me luck, or can I be too optimistic?