In the last twelve years, I’ve lived at nine addresses, not counting stops at my mom’s house in between, and for better or for worse, eight of those nine moves have been in the heart of summer. I remember the year in our first, run-down apartment in Cambridgeport when I finally cracked and bought a window A/C unit the week before we moved, because I was sick of packing boxes in a heat wave. I remember taking breaks from packing up our apartment in New Haven because the sound of the tape gun was too loud for Murray to nap—and Murray was still napping three times a day! But mostly, I remember the feeling of kneeling on the floor yet again to find some lost screw as I spent yet another hot summer day building yet another piece of IKEA’s ingenious furniture.

I hate moving.

The moves have slowed down a bit over time—we’ve spent the last six years in only two apartments!—but this has come with its own problems. Over the years our closets have filled with extraordinary amounts of junk: button-down shirts I haven’t worn in years, broken pieces of long-forgotten toys, an entire storage unit full of boxes we packed last time and never opened again. Packing up and moving has always been the thing that forces me to come to terms with what I’ve stashed away, to take it out from the closets and let it see the light of day. Or, more likely, the inside of a dumpster.

Well, I’m happy (or sorry?) to say that we’ll be moving again this year, from our apartment in Cambridge into a new apartment in Charlestown. And we’re excited to become a part of the community, and nervous about the transition, and completely unenthused about having to pack and move once again.

So, I’m trying to see the gift in the unpleasant packing project ahead. I’m trying to see it as an opportunity to unload the baggage of the last few years, to sort through the clutter that fills my closets (and, too often, coats the floors). And I’m trying to remember that this is as true of spiritual life as it is of anything in daily life: it’s often the most unpleasant processes, the ones that strip away all our defenses and distractions and force us to confront the junk in our mental closets, that are the most rewarding in the end.

Because, hey! however awful hot summer packing up may be, at the end we’ll be in Charlestown!