We have moved. Again.
For those of you who are tired of crossing out my address on your Christmas Card list and are thinking of nixing me altogether…I get it. I don’t blame you one bit. You may not believe me, but you can write this address IN PEN, because…well, my mental health says so.
Truth be told, we actually moved in July. I am just now recovering from the PTSD of it all to blog about it. It’s been said that among the most stressful things in life, moving is in the top 5 on most lists. I am here to attest to the 100% truth of that. I’m not making light of the other monumental things on the list, just saying that IT’S SO MUCH.
Around these parts, people joke about how I’ve become a pro at packing and moving. And then they quickly take two steps back because they aren’t sure if I am going to cry or wield my ever-present box cutter. It’s true though, and so what do I do to cope with the stress of it all? Besides drinking copious amounts of wine and eating crappy take-out because the kitchen is already packed, I write about it. So, the blogger version of me is going to document this for those of you who may be thinking of doing it. It all begins with THE PURGE.
Purging is as exciting for me as half-price happy hour. Each and every time we move, I have a dumpster delivered to my driveway and I start chucking stuff in. It’s full to the brim within days. It hasn’t even been TWO YEARS since the last time I did this, and 3 years before that. How in the world did we accumulate this much shit? I thought I had it pared down to the bare minimum for the Denver move, but slowly and surely the house fills up again. This time though, I was serious. I decided to forego the puny Waste Management dumpster in my driveway and take advantage of John’s commercial dumpster at the warehouse. Each day when he came home from work I had bags and bags piled up in the garage. No room of my house nor family member’s belongings were safe. By about the third day, John was onto my trick…I bought black garbage bags so that no one could see what I was throwing away.
Not even my garage refrigerator was safe. Each time we had entertained over the past two years, our thoughtful friends showed up with beer and wine and such. Well, if you know John and I at all, you know we are drinkers of crappy beer. Cold and domestic are our preferences. Anything else goes bad in my fridge due to lack of attention.
At that point, I was on a roll, a woman possessed. I threw out everything within arms reach….
School artwork up the wazoo
Notebooks with one used page
Boxes and boxes of penne pasta
Stuffed animals that have clearly been mating
Tubes of lipstick that are so old they’re petrified
While progress was being made for sure, after a few days I was feeling a bit haphazard about my purging and needed some direction. So, I turned to the popular organizing expert Marie Kondo for some inspiration. If you live under a rock and haven’t heard of Marie, she has a very popular book and Netflix show called “Tidying Up.” I’ve watched exactly zero episodes (Hello…Southern Charm was on), but the idea was something I could get behind. Her method suggests that you throw crap away based on categories rather than by room, and only keep items that “spark joy” in your life. Well since I’d already gone through every room, this seemed like the next logical step. Here are her suggested categories and my “loose” interpretation:
CLOTHES– Here’s the part where I pick on myself a bit. There are clothes in my closet that I haven’t worn in years. Some of them are brand new with tags. There are clothes I bought when I was fatter and clothes I bought thinking I’d be skinnier. There are clothes that I am too old to pull off anymore and some that a much younger and hipper girl on Instagram looked darling in (for reference, she’s 5 feet tall and 100 pounds). None of this gave me joy, so out they went. Somebody shopping at Goodwill had a great day.
BOOKS– I love to read. If I could have an entire room filled floor to ceiling with books, I would. But, this was about the purging so it was time to do some sorting. Anything by Kristen Hannah? Keep. That 100 lb. box of encyclopedias that John swears we still need? Gone.
PAPERS– Good God. I found tax returns from before we were married. Appliance manuals from 3 houses ago. I am one of two people on the planet who still keeps a checkbook register, but do I really need boxes and boxes of carbon duplicates?
MISCELLANEOUS ITEMS– Now we’re talking. I can make just about anything fall into this category, right? Jackson’s collection of pressed pennies from every vending machine we’ve ever passed. Reese’s packs and packs of gum in her room, each with one piece left. Malory’s assortment of McDonald’s Happy Meal toys. (EDIT: She hasn’t looked at these toys in months, and I’ll be damned if she doesn’t ask for them the day after I throw them out).
SENTIMENTAL ITEMS– We’ve gone fifteen rounds about saving John’s knickknacks and carting them from house to house, only for them to sit on a shelf in the garage. It was during the last move that I finally shamed convinced him to part with his high school 6-disc CD changer WITH cassette tape. This time the fight was about a jacket he’s had since high school. Listen, I get it. I too am a sentimental person. I’ve kept all drawings, cards and notes that my kids have ever written. However, I’m proud to report that I’ve moved into the “digital age.” I take pictures of it all and then it goes into the big black garbage bag. So, let’s not talk about where that coat is today, or the number of pictures on my phone.
Whew!! That’s enough for now. I’m exhausted from recounting this trying time in my life, so I’m going to go unpack a box. Or drink some wine. Whatever.
Next time….the packing. And the unpacking.
I hear you on this. I moved 17 times within the first 17 yrs of my life in fort collins. during that time I became an expert at purging and packing. although it was affected by what became some minor ocd-ish tendencies. to this day i am purging year ’round. for every item that comes in, i think five go out. just this summer we had arc come and pick up a ton of stuff and we got rid of all of the extra furniture we had to the extent that the front room of our house is empty. lol it will have a couch at some point. just a couple weeks ago, i went through every christmas item we had and i’ve gotten rid of or given away all that we won’t use. I think we even have the christmas lights on our house figured out for the rest of our lives. maybe drink a glass of wine for every couple boxes? =)