Thursday, January 20, 2011

Everyone should prepare for a long-distance move. Now, before you think I’m crazy, hear me out.

I think I shared that one of our goals is to have our basement emptied by the end of the March, and that we intend to go through at least one box a day to achieve that goal. We’re definitely on track with that. The interesting thing about this is that we are not keeping most of it. As we go through the boxes, we are very selective about what we keep.

To preface this, we have moved four times in our thirteen + years of marriage. Our first move was from Chicago to Fond du Lac, each of us driivng a U-Haul truck through rush hour on the expressway. Yeah, that took a few years off our lives! The other three moves were within the city, using U-Haul each time. For each move, we have brought all our possessions with us, minimizing some but not really taking an intense look at what we own.

So as we go through the boxes now, for our fifth (and what we hope) our final move, we find that it’s really freeing to let go of what we own. Do we really need to move a 24 year old typewriter to Florida? What about all the saved baby clothes? (Our youngest will be 11 in March). No, really we don’t. We keep what is truly important to us, take pictures of/and discard the rest. We are not doing a huge rummage sale before we leave, but we are donating to Freecycle and Goodwill.

It’s not always easy, and sometimes it’s downright hard to part with items. But for us we are keeping our eyes on the goal, and we would much rather be in Florida minus possessions, than in Wisconsin with possessions. Yes we could move with all our stuff, but it begs the question, do we really want to? And our answer is no.

It’s a wonderful feeling, which is why I say everyone should prepare for a long distance move. Even if you have no intentions of actually moving, pretend you are and discard the clutter out of your life.

You won’t be sorry you did.

Jen