...cut and run...

There's a move in our future.

Not sure when. Not sure how.  Not sure where.
Hoping soon.  Hoping simple.  Hoping south.

It all depends on the budget.

Wallet worries aside, we (or rather, I) have been slowly working steadily towards it.

I've moved a good deal.   Oddly enough, I've never really found it stressful.  Maybe the excitement over-rides the fear?   Packing up is fun.  It's an opportunity to sift through memories and toss out the ones that don't mean as much anymore.  It's a chance to divest of the bits and pieces that aren't a part of you or your life/lifestyle.   It's the perfect time to really take stock of all that you have and unencumber yourself, shedding off those things you never really wanted or used, but couldn't quite see your way clear to throwing away.  

I'm no moving expert, but I like to think I have a pretty good system.  At the very least, it's one that works for me.  I like lists.  I like boxes.  I like knowing I have everything organized and ready to go, well in advance.  That's the key, right there...well in advance.  

During spring break, we set aside time to tackle our storage shed?shack?lean to? (It used to be the poolhouse at the back of the property for a now long-gone pool.  We've used it to store the bulk of our off season belongings, as our apartment is a veritable postage stamp.  Then Sandy came through and turned it into a demolition site.  A few handy boards have held up just enough of it to keep our totes mostly dry, but the most recent bout of winter-spring storms turned it into a safety hazard!) Totes upon totes upon...yeah, you get it.  We pulled them all out, and started the great dig through. 

3 piles to start: keep, donate, trash  

Some hours later those 3 piles had morphed into 5:keep, keep for now, donate, trash, ebay

Then one more: undecided

Quick tip: if you really want to be thorough, make it a solo run...don't involve anyone else in the "hmmm...keep or toss debate".  If too many cooks spoil the soup, then too many opinions absolutely spoil the slough.  Given the opportunity to weigh in, someone else will absolutely come up with a reason to keep your ready discards.

At any rate, the undecided pile grew...then shrank...then grew again...until I finally opted to put it all in one tote to be dealt with in the future.  What I had thought would take an hour or two at most had morphed into an all day circus.  Every new-found item requiring discourse and debate.  But in the end, my stubbornness prevailed and car load after car load was dropped off at dumpster or donation center.  (When we went back a few days later, we got a good giggle out of the prices Goodwill had marked our cast-offs with!)  All the keepers got relocated to a dryer, safer locale. There they'll wait until I feel another purge come on.  Be warned! Ha!

Storage tackled, closets came next.  What. A. Nightmare!

So here's the thing.  I try to be good about closet-purging.  I talk a good game.  The seasons change and the closets rearrange.  Twice a year I pull out every last scrap of fabric.  Everything gets tried on.  Bags get filled.  Donations happen.  No, really, they do.  But inevitably at least one of those bags, chock full of items I know I should get rid of, sneaks it's way back into my closet....hiding well back behind my off season items. 

This time around, I found two of those bags.  Full.  I wanted to keep them all!  I really did.  Pretty dresses, all bagged up and ready to go...but I wanted to keep them.  I wanted to go back in time...or tonnage...and wear them all again.  More than that though, I wanted to not be getting rid of anything more!  

There's a bit of trauma...or, maybe, more appropriately, drama...involved in the closet purge. At least for me.  There's these feelings of shame.  Shame for the body that has changed and grown and doesn't fit into what it once did.  Shame for the money spent and now seemingly wasted as something that was purchased is now rendered useless.  

So I try to be good.  And I talk the talk.  I even walk the walk.  Then I find myself walking things back in, right back in to the very back where they won't be seen but they won't be gone.

But this time, it's different.  There's the promise of a move on the horizon.  That alone is enough to inspire a harsher approach.  So those bags came out, as did everything else.  I shut the bedroom door.  Locked it for good measure.  No interruptions allowed.  I tried on everything.  The mis-fits hit the floor, the still-fits hit the bed.  Soon enough, the floor was covered.

Doesn't fit?  Floor

Faded?  Floor

Damaged?  Floor

Doesn't spark a smile?  Floor

I sifted through the piles on the floor, pulling out what could be resold.  Then tossed the rest into bags (ugh, so many bags!) and quickly carried them out to the car, no second glances allowed.   We drove directly to Goodwill, pulled into the donation drop-off and emptied out.

Once home again, I slowly went through the remains.  Piece by piece, hung in the closet.  Lonely...and bare looking.  Piece by piece had to pass by a second round of judgement, and again the floor was littered with cast offs.  Shoes came next.  Then handbags.  Accessories...socks...pajamas...nothing was spared.

Even now, as I write this, I wonder what more I am ready to part with?  What more has outstayed it's welcome?  Seen through the lens of a move-of a fresh start-what is there lurking in that closet that isn't really who I want to be?  

Laundry day has become part of the process.  Wash-dry-fold...and then...unfold.  Look at.  Really look at.  And toss into a bag.

I'm trying a new rule.  Nothing comes in without something going out. So far, so good.  It helps that warm weather keeps poking its head out from between the cold and rain to remind me that it's time for change.

By the time summer rolls around, I expect we'll have whittled down to easy packing.  At the rate I'm going, we won't need wardrobe boxes...just suitcases.  Perfect!

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Still untouched?  My son's Transformers collection...and all his creations.

They'll require an extra U-Haul!