When we decided to go on this adventure, it required a *sometimes* painful culling of our stuff. I Marie-Kondo’ed a couple of years ago. For those living under a rock (and my dad, who almost exclusively watching car auctions on tv), Marie Kondo-ing is the exercise where you hold each of your belongings in your hand and ask yourself if it brings you joy. It is a fantastic exercise. As a woman with an unreasonable passion for The Dump, the exercise itself brought me joy. I recommend it for everyone. For the love of God, I will do it for you. This is how much joy I get from deciding something does not bring me joy and letting it go. The exercise helped me recognize my kitchen is Queen, I only care about the Christmas ornaments that evoke memories of travel and experiences, and I really didn’t need more than four or five (maybe six) pairs of black shoes. It also allowed me to let go of the majority of the “irons” in our house — curling, waffle, and clothing. Good lawd, even writing about it brings me considerable joy.
But this project was different. No matter how often we purged, we have lived in our home for 18 years. In order to make this move, we were going to need to say good-bye to at least two-thirds of our belongings. Deep Breaths. We budgeted a decent amount of money to move our belongings, but this still was only going to afford us three awkwardly-shaped international crates (87″ x 87″ x 43″).
The basement was easy. The majority of the stuff down there was only there for a couple of reasons: a) Kondo-Fatigue. This is real, and it can derail a successful purging if not given proper attention; b) Not My Box. I decided to Kondo, J did not. This is a more difficult challenge for us personally, because J is a bit more of a hoarder than I. So, I had to leave those boxes alone; and c) Lil’ Bit of Joy. Marie Kondo does not address this clearly enough. What do you do with the things that bring you a little bit of joy?! In the end, more stuff than we needed stuck around. Whatever. We had space.
We used our dining room as a staging area. Belongings we wanted to take went there. Things we wanted to sell, donate, throw away went to another space. And we moved room to room, clearing out each as we went. Periodically, we would revisit the dining room. Did we need it? What if we tossed it? Would we miss it? Would we miss it a lot? Could we replace it reasonably once we moved?
There were few Sacred Cows, but if what was shipped if our crates could be considered profiling, I think you will be able to draw some pretty clear conclusions.
1. Almost the entire kitchen. I have awesome equipment in my kitchen, and I did not want to limp along working with subpar shit because I kept something else. So, I said good-bye to some things I really did love – but not as much as I love my cast-iron cookware, my knives, and my Kitchen-Aid stand mixer.
2. The bar from our living room and the accompanying bar cart. I know, this one is pretty obvious, but hear me out. The bar is a super cool piece that has always received many compliments both for it’s beauty and it’s incredible storage. And, it’s made of a beautiful sturdy dense wood that will stand up to our new, tropical climate. And the bar cart? Well, that’s where I keep my booze.
3. Our bed. Don’t get gross, this is about sleep. I like to sleep. A lot. It is nearly one of my most favorite things to do. And, I am old, so, if am not careful, I can hurt myself doing this thing I love almost as much as I love cooking and drinking. Mexican king beds are shorter, and less wide — so when we sleep in them, we bang into one another in unwelcome ways — not to mention that, on any given night there are one to three dogs that insist on sleeping with us. So the bed became the most sacred of cows. I love it. It’s a king bed, it’s less than a year old, and I have never slept consistently as well as I have since it moved in. So the bed was coming. No. Matter. What.
4. The Peloton and my Bar Method equipment. Sleeping, eating, and drinking bring me joy; but the Peloton and my daily Bar Method classes feed my soul. So all of that needed to go.
The movers packed up our belongings, including my beautiful bed (that I awkwardly hugged in front of the movers, my husband and God) on February 19th. I have been without the majority of my cookware, my bed, real weights for Bar Method class, and countless other items deemed critical, for more than a month. This is getting dark.
By my calculations, our belongings are traveling approximately three and a half hours a day. They will finally reach Laredo, Texas this coming Wednesday. It will take a few days to clear customs, and then they will freakin’ snail-crawl from Laredo to Bucerias, burning up roadways with their white-hot, three and a half hours a day, lightening-fast travel. For those of you scoring at home, this means I won’t sleep in my bed for another two weeks. At least.
I really miss my stuff.
-cqn
#nedventures 