View Full Version : if moving and what i would keep
I fantasize a lot about moving back to the mountains when I retire in a few years and who knows, maybe it will really happen. In the meantime, I was looking around the house and realized that there isn't much that I am terribly attached to anymore. For example, I sat in the living room and imagined what I would keep from that room. Not much-my tastes have changed over the years and so it is still full of antiques from some other period in my life when I loved them. It was a liberating thought to imagine having a large estate sale and just letting most of it go so we wouldn't have to move it. Ah, starting over would be interesting...
Sad Eyed Lady
7-16-11, 10:58pm
Yes, I often think that if I move again I will take very little with me. So much can be replaced at nominal costs if you shop home consignment stores etc. During a particularly bad time in my life, (and nothing to do at all with my husband), I just had this desperate desire to get away, and I would lie awake at night and mentally pack my car. Then I realized how little I could really get by with if need be. It is a liberating thought.
one of my favorite things from taoism (i think) is that when you turn 65, you begin counting your age backwards. :D in addition, you usually have a massive party, where everyone comes with food, and leaves with whatever they want from your home. then, the next day, you are gifted the bare bones of what you feel you need for continued living.
nice, right? :)
We were discussing this again today, as once again we were talking about moving to the east coast. There is just so much stuff that we don't like that much or is due for a replacement anyhow or is reasonably cheap/easy to replace at our destination. The main big thing to keep is our beds - we love the mattresses and they're still fairly new. And beds are expensive to replace. Other than that, we'd try to bring the computers, favorite clothes and a few books. Some of the kitchen stuff that we actually like or is newer. Since most of our stuff is a mish-mash of old or second hand, replacing it shouldn't be hard. Some stuff we might just do without at least initially, like bookshelves, vacuum, kitchen table. We'd like to be able to just buy a truck and trailer, since we also want to trade in our little car anyhow, and only take what will fit.
During a particularly bad time in my life, (and nothing to do at all with my husband), I just had this desperate desire to get away, and I would lie awake at night and mentally pack my car. Then I realized how little I could really get by with if need be. It is a liberating thought.
Hey! I did this. 'Cept in my case, it have everything to do with the husband.;) And I did pack the car and drive away.
But yes, it is amazing how little you need, even with kids in tow.
Anybody remember the book or movie Sleeping With the Enemy? The protagonist swam away with some money in a pouch.
I always have moving on my mind though at this point I don't know to where or when that may happen. However, I have been really paying attention to what I own the last few years and have been getting rid of so much (and I have to admit I really never had lots of stuff anyway). As I unload my possessions I do feel a sense of freedom and I love the space I have in my house. Sometimes I too fantasize about just packing up and leaving and really, there would be very little I would feel sad to leave or feel any desperation if something couldn't fit in the trunk of my car.
I like to keep a clean, cozy but "light" home and while I certainly have some possessions that I enjoy living with for now, the attachment to those things aren't there.
We have been in our house for almost 30 years. We have had a couple minor disasters (flooding, there have been at least 3 100 year floods here since 2007) that have forced us to go through some stuff and toss it. It was wonderful to have "permission" to get rid of wet magazines and such! I often think it would be a wonderful thing to pretend we're moving and keep just what we want. I doubt that will happen.
This week my brothers and I are gathering at Mom and Dad's place. They are moving into an apartment after over 50 years in that home. My niece and her family will be moving into the house. We're going through and tagging what we might want, what can be sold or whatever, and what needs to just go. It will be interesting to see how this all works. And if we can keep Dad out of the mix! He's the "keeper" in that marriage.
My DH and I moved across country eight months ago. We packed our one car (a Pontiac Grand Prix) with all our most cherished possessions, including the cat. We packed up books and some art and less-vital-but-still-important paperwork, and mailed it to ourselves at our new address. The rest of the house, we left for an auctioneer to come and clear out and sell for us. Mind you, they came after two weeks of intensive decluttering and endless trips to the dump and the Goodwill shop. We arrived to an empty apartment, and went to Wal-Mart to buy two camp chairs and a blow-up matress. The next day we went shopping at consignment stores, thrift stores, Wal-Mart and Target, and got ourselves sorted out in about ten days.
I don't miss one bit of the stuff we got rid of, and in another eight months we will be doing the same again when we move overseas. It really does feel nice to figure out what really is important and what is not, in terms of one's own possessions. The handful of things that were lost in the mail I have already easily replaced. There have only been a VERY small number of items that I got rid of myself and ended up needing to purchase again. Liberating!
shadowmoss
7-19-11, 6:44pm
I am sending stuff that I had shipped down here to Honduras on its trip back to the US in Missouri in the next couple of weeks. I'm sending about 1/3 as much back as I shipped down here, but I have been mailing smaller stuff back all along. It will go into a storage unit as I don't see myself moving back to the US for a couple of years. I still have a 10x20 unit in Nashville, and over then next several months I'll go back there a couple of times and move what I want to keep into the unit in MO. At most I'll have a 10x15, just one, and all but what will fit in 2 suitcases that will be with me will be in that one unit. It is a lot, but waaaay less than I had before. It's a process. The storage units have bought me time. I just couldn't get rid of stuff at the rate I needed to and handle the other things going on in my life at the time. The forced moves helped me turn loose of stuff that I wouldn't have otherwise. Having not seen the stuff in Nashville in over a year has helped loosen the hold most of it had on me, too. I know what stuff I miss, and most of it I can't even remember what is there, so it will get donated/sold.
I know what stuff I miss, and most of it I can't even remember what is there, so it will get donated/sold.
Is this not the key??!!??
I found out from my daughter that several CDs that I thought went up in the house fire years ago, still live on at their dad's house.
Have I missed those CDs enough to repurchase them? NO. Have I thought I would like to listen to them again.....hhmmm, maybe when I hear one of the songs on the radio. Worth $15 or calling the State Police to get MY STUFF back. Nooooooo.
wow ..... i have had this feeling for a long time, I just want to pack up my car with just the essentials and hit the road. To where I don't know yet ....! I have spent the last 20 years pursuing simplicity and then minimalisim .... and I just want to get rid of whats left. Not really practicle, because I don't have a lot, but its what in my heart. any sage advice?
shadowmoss
7-20-11, 10:48am
Put everything but what will fit in your car into a place you can't get to easily - a separate room or closet or something. Live with what is still out for awhile (week? month?). Sit down with it again and see if there is more to put away that you haven't used, see what you needed enough to go pull back out. Make those changes and live with that awhile. Rope off a smaller section of your living area and just live in that. See what works and what you end up needing after all.
When I've moved I found I actually used enough to go out of my way to reacquire: a microwave, a towel of some kind to wipe up spills/dry off things, some cleaning products (even living in a hotel, as I prefer to clean my place myself), a sponge, a coffee-maker and coffee in my room (restaurate downstairs operates on Honduran time...). Oh, and an alarm clock with 2 alarms, as I had opted for an older, smaller one of my Mom's and ended up having her send my larger one I can see without glasses and the two alarms. Sometimes it's the little things...
After the experiment you may know if it's the smaller amount of stuff/living area or the 'going' that you crave.
wow ..... i have had this feeling for a long time, I just want to pack up my car with just the essentials and hit the road. To where I don't know yet ....! I have spent the last 20 years pursuing simplicity and then minimalisim .... and I just want to get rid of whats left. Not really practicle, because I don't have a lot, but its what in my heart. any sage advice?
This is what I would do also as I'm not attached to anything. Maybe just take a box of photos and that's it. I actually LIKE having very little and not being attached to things. I find it extemely freeing. I never worry about my things - stolen, fire, flood - don't care if it's all gone. I like knowing that if I ever wanted to just go (which i always do :-)!), I just pack a backpack, drop my little box of personal papers and photos at my sister's and everything else can go. Very freeing!
Gardenarian
7-20-11, 4:52pm
I took a load of stuff to Salvation Army the other day and as I dropped it off I realized that the amount I donated was MORE than the total amount of stuff I brought when I moved cross-country.
It made me sad to think of all the money I've wasted. What does my family need? Anymore than we take on a camping trip? Why do I have so much stuff?
I'll never be a minimalist, but I want to have LESS.
It is interesting to me how packing up and escaping is a very common theme, especially among women. I think I read a book once, Ladder of Years?, about a woman who just sort of disappeared from her safe but boring life into another existence...carrying only a suitcase.
Last Friday morning at 4:42 the buildingfire alarm started blaring. There's no one at the front desk to call and ask about it, so I dressed in the clothes I planned to wear that day and went down to look. Seeing a police van and a fire truck, I went back upstairs and gathered:
-cell phone and charger
-purse (for money and ID)
-laptop and power cord
-the novel I'm currently reading
I looked around and did not see even ONE other thing I cared enough about to carry it out of the building, even though I have duffel bags handy and planned to take the elevator. [I know, not in a fire. Tell my knee.] In case there really was a fire, I left the door unlocked so the fire department wouldn't feel a need to break it down.
Which leads me to my current theory that the future holds a time when people will not be so closely associated with a fixed home as we are now. The "homed" or maybe “land-homed” or “wired-down” may be as unusual as the "homeless" are now. I've been reading "AnOptimist's Tour of the Future", which includes discussion of new solar technology composed of a flexible solar film with built-in energy storage capacity that can be installed on windows and potentially generate enough powerfor that one home or RV to not need to connect to electricity delivered by wires.
Neo-nomadic hunter-gatherers, hunting a good parking spot for the solar van, and gathering over coffee at McDonald's?
One by one the wires that tie us to fixed habitations are being snapped. Our physical space needs are also changing. That night I took all of my information and communications needs, as well as photos,music, games, family history, resume, writings, several Kindle or Word format books including two versions of the Bible, and financial records, with me when I left. That used to be a lot of physical stuff that needed physical house-room. Now I can carry it in a laptop case.
I also reflected that, after the teeth in my mouth and the car in the parking lot, the laptop is the most expensive thing that I own. Next is the refrigerator, which I am SO not rescuing, fire or not!
Turns out the alarm was due to a plumbing break, luckily on the first floor and in a utility area, so there won't be $250,000 of damage like there was last time.
In retrospect I think that if I had been more awake I would have taken the little container of family jewelry (nothing dollar-valuable). And more clothes and shoes, just to avoid having to replace them if it had been an actual fire.
flowerseverywhere
7-20-11, 9:08pm
first, our neighbors just moved and the moving company needed two days to pack and two days to load the giant truck, it was mindblowing. Old office furniture that was stored in the basement, all kinds of junk they paid to move. Then we just went on a bike trip and carried everything we needed for ten days. I did not feel that there was much more we needed and I did not miss the internet, news, tv etc. While we were gone a screen blew out of a window and one of our neighbors thought we might have had an attempted break in so checked the house, but it was just the wind.
When I told him that being so unencumbered made me really think about what I really needed to live, and there was little of value I would take if I needed to bug out. We already scanned all of our personal papers and photos and copies are with the kids so they would be easy to replace, and we wear our wedding rings. Besides that everything is replaceable.
The last twenty years we have rarely bought anything brand new, we let others take the depreciation hit. Except for some hand crafted furniture in our house, everything could be cheaply replaced.
I think that if I was going to move I would short term rent a storage unit and pack up everything I thought I could live without in it. If you need it, you can easily get it but chances are you would end your time with a trip to the local charity donation center with all the stuff. Way cheaper than paying to move it.
Shadowmoss I think you hit the nail on the head with your comment: "After the experiment you may know if it's the smaller amount of stuff/living area or the 'going' that you crave". I have been doing what you described, without really knowing it ... make sense? And it comes down to do I stay or do I go .... thank you.
Thank you all for the feedback, it really is great to be in the company of like minded folks. I have lurked for a long time and really appreciate the conversation on this site.
Water&Air
shadowmoss
7-21-11, 5:52pm
It's funny that what I've packed up to ship home is the 'middle' stuff. What I 'need' I'm keeping with me. What I'll get rid of I'm keeping here for now but will get rid of when I leave this country. What I don't really need right now but don't want to get rid of will be approx. 100 sq ft of stuff shipped back to the US for storage. To add to the stuff already in storage. I'll be revisiting that stuff over the next few years. sigh. Like I said, the storage unit(s) buy me time. No relation to the value of the stuff.
Oh Zoebird...that sounds wonderful...can I do that at 37??? : )
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