This is a long one. I broke it into headings so read what you are interested in. Skip what you aren't.
This post is a tribute to Joy. Joy and I met about two years ago briefly at the bike ride fundraiser event my best friend, Abby, was putting together and I was volunteering for. Joy was Abby's co-worker and I saw Joy again the next year at the ride.
What I'm getting at here is that Joy and I have had minimal interactions on the grand scheme of time when we began our journey across the country. This is why I give it up to both of us for keeping our wits about us through the trek and for deciding, after putting ourselves in a situation where no human is at their best,
that we were extremely please with our decision to be roommates.
I won't bore you with the minute-by-minute of this journey -- many of the minutes were spent driving -- but I will highlight why at the end of this process, I'm slightly convinced Joy and I could start a moving company called "Strong Independent Women."
Strong Independent Women [SIW] Moving Company will never exist. As Joy has put it, we can do it all, but why do it all when you don't need to? Joy -- wise words.
The Drive -- Two Days
Joy learned early that I had a leadfoot and I learned early on that Joy was more than capable of keeping up and enjoyed life in the fast lane as well. This shaved hours off our our trip and we were able to do the trip with one stop in Missouri.
Kansas City, Missouri -- I have some thoughts here.
It was much larger than I expected [489,000 people]. Who would have guessed?!
It was very homogeneous.
21 drinking age might be more of a suggestion.
I'm equally intrigued to go back and learn more about this city and to never return.
The Arrival
I won't lie, if it wasn't for the fact that the motto SIW was so perfect for encapsulating the entire move, there would have been a different motto and you will learn about this soon.
We drove up to our place at 9:30pm feeling great. I 90-degree backed the U-Haul into the driveway [remember: SIW] and we were compliment on our driving abilities from a neighbor. This boosted our mood more.
We walked up to the door. Unlocked it. Then we were face slapped with heat.
Why you ask? Because we got there a day early, which meant our electricity wasn't turned on yet. Not our best SIW moment.
We pulled a mattress out of the truck for sleeping and then went out for several hours to escape the heat of our new home. Our last stop Whataburger [Fun Fact: The last time I had fast-food is I don't remember when, but I decided that on a night when I was going to sleep in a 88+ degree house I should eat Whataburger at 4am].
Then we slept -- kind of -- for a few hours.
We gave up on sleeping, hauled all of our belongings into the house.
The electrical man -- whom I may have asked to marry as I couldn't remember a time I have been so happy to see a man and I felt that might be a feeling I should jump on. Turns out lack of sleep and heat exhaustion makes you propose to complete strangers -- who graciously turned on your electrical.
We were all moved in by 10:30am and sleeping by 11am in our air conditioned home.
Runner Up Motto
This was the moment I knew Joy and I were going to get along just fine as roommates and friends.
We were moving the first of the beds up a flight of stairs [again just to recap: in the dark, in a house that was nearing 90 degrees, and with a very small amount of sleep in our systems] the boxspring to be more specific. The stairs turned so I paused as I was at the front of the bed. The conversation went as follows.
Aly: Joy, I'm not sure we can get it up like this. We may need to pick it up over our heads to fit.
Joy: Aly, we just need to buck the f**k up.
Joy was in no-joke-mode, I'm not sure how this was going to help us fit the mattress up the stairs, but I could tell this was her solution to our problem. She then immediately picked up the bed and started on up, no railing was going to stop her.
For whatever reason this all struck me as funny and comforting. Probably because these are the words I would have heard from my family if I would have stop halfway up the stairs when when moving a large object with one of them -- mainly my dad.
Motto Origin Story
After the mattresses were safely moved up to our rooms and we were on to moving other boxes back into the kitchen, I said to Joy that were were strong capable women and we could finish this [people this was a HOT move we needed pep talks throughout the process].
Joy turned and looked at me and said: I know we are, but we have been for four days. I'd like to just not for a second and have someone cook me a dinner.
Preach Joy. Preach.
Advice: So with that I leave you with a small piece of advice. If you are dating, married, in a long term relationship, or a millennial who is seeing someone but not wanting to put a label on it, and this person is someone you consider to be a strong capable woman cook her a damn dinner.
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