Now starts the long, arduous task of sorting the "brick and mortar" house into things that will stay until we are ready to sell, things that must go either to charity or a yard sale, and things that we just have take with us. It seems like it should be an easy enough task, right? I thought so, too, until today.
We have lived in this house for almost 12 years. That's enough time to become attached to a lot of "stuff". I have pictures, keepsakes the kids made for me when they were 2, books, more books, appliances in the kitchen that I don't even know how to use and a garage full of more stuff.
We started our sorting/purging in the kids' rooms. At first, I felt things were just just moving from one pile to another. I couldn't get a handle on the clutter. Every room in the house was a mess. There was no room at the table, even, for us to eat meals together. So I created a "one touch rule". We worked through one cabinet or closet at a time. I'd pull something out, make a decision to keep, sell or give away. Anything that was to be given away or donated went straight to the trunk of my car to be dropped off that week. Anything that was designated for the yard sale got a quick price tag and was added to the yard sale table in the garage. By only touching things once, we were able to get a handle on the clutter. Now we just have schedule those yard sales...
I'm learning to let go and trying to focus instead on the journey. I have some big goals for myself on this trip. I think there is value in living in the moment. I'm not always good about enjoying whatever I am currently doing because I'm busy planning for tomorrow, next week or even next year. Life is made up of many journeys and I don't want to miss any of them.
Amazingly, I could have written this post. We are renting our house out while we are gone for our year and have been working on getting it cleaned out enough for the property management's leasing agent to take photos. My wife and I are constantly muttering that we're "throwing away memories". Everything was kept for a reason, but really- so much doesn't need to be kept!
ReplyDeleteWe don't have time for yard sales (we leave in 2 months!) so I just started using a local auction company. I dropped a small truckload of stuff off on Monday and today went to pickup the 2 or 3 things that didn't sell (which I promptly took to the dump along with some other stuff). They take something like 35% of the sale price, but still- for minimal work, it is worth it.