I moved this weekend from the place I’ve lived for the better part of five years. It’s sort of sad because I used to love the Townes at Herndon – until I moved into the townhouse we were in this past year. First of all, when we moved in – there were cockroaches everywhere. We eliminated the cockroaches, but then in September our A/C went out, and no matter how many tickets I put in, it never got fixed. In fact, the last time, they guy came and said it worked because it was blowing air. Nevermind that the air was HOT. So, we obviously didn’t renew, and as of Wednesday of this week – we didn’t know where we were going and I was supposed to go to the beach with April and Mary this week.

So Katina calls me on Wednesday night, and says we have to find to place – and if we get a place before Friday, she’ll handle all the moving so that I can go to the beach. She would forgo her own mini-vacation to the lake with all the Jimmy’s people to make it happen so that I could go to the beach. It was seriously the most touching offer anyone has ever made for me. So we signed a lease at Dulles Green – and I was thinking that I was going to hit the beach with April and Mary as late as Thursday night.

But then I started thinking – Katina’s offer was so sweet, and no one has ever gone of their way to make something easy on me like that, so I decided that I should stay and help her move all my stuff. Now, you know that we don’t have A/C in the townhouse – so Saturday morning, we got a truck, and started moving everything because we wanted to sleep in an air conditioned apartment on Saturday night. We start moving and packing with her boyfriend, and I send out a text to a bunch of my friends asking for help. (The only person who responded was Brett.)

By 5PM – I’m freaking out. There’s so much left to do, we only have the truck until 11AM the next morning, I’m breaking out in hives from the sweat of the non-a/c’d apartment and the stress of no one responding to me… and I do the unthinkable.

I text [redacted]‘s boys to see if they can help.

And every single one of them that I texted responded with the same answer.

“Don’t freak out girl, we got you, we’ll get everything done with you, just hang tight.”

Last night, one of them came over to help me with the kitchen and living room stuff and my bedroom. He helped set up my bed, and came BACK over this morning after no sleep to do the last truck load with me and drop off the truck. One came over this afternoon when I woke up from my nap with small stuff I needed for the new apartment and to see if I needed help moving furniture around now that I’ve got it here or anything put up on the walls. Another is coming over tomorrow to help me clean the old townhouse, and then on Wednesday, one is coming over to patch all the holes and paint the walls so I don’t get charged for that.

I am so humbled by the response I’ve received from them. [Redacted] and I aren’t dating anymore, and these are the people he’s known the longest in his life, dropping everything they are doing on their holiday weekend to come help me in my time of need. They aren’t asking for anything in return, and they don’t owe me anything.

And while I was sitting out on the balcony with one of them, he asked me what happened with [redacted] and I – and I gave him the run down. He kind of chuckled when I was finished telling the story, and said, “I was always jealous of [redacted]. He had an awesome house, a girl who loved him and freedom to do pretty much whatever he wanted.” In that moment, looking at his friends telling me how they viewed the relationship, all of a sudden, all the guilt and all the pain for my part of the break up faded away and for the first time since everything went down, I actually felt myself start to heal.

Katina’s been going on and on about how this new apartment is a new start and new beginnings for all of us.

She’s totally right.