Moving to a smaller home is kind of a big deal after nearly 33 years in the same house. In 3 months we reduced our belongings to fit into the new house. Or so we hope! It still looks like we have a crazy amount of stuff!
We had just sold our house when I ended Downsizing Part 1. It’s been a whirlwind ever since. This week we have movers coming for wave 2 of moving things to storage. Next week the movers will move us into our rented townhome, and we will close on the house that’s been our home for nearly 33 years, and pass the keys on to the new owners.
I never realized decision fatigue is a thing. Moving can cause it. As I handled almost every item in our home I would ask myself, keep for townhouse, pack and store for new house, offer to kids, donate, or simply throw away? Every. Single. Item. Clothes, cleaning supplies, crafts, kitchen stuff, everything. As the days progressed, the most insignificant decisions could sometimes result in tears. Not the sad, what have I done kind of tears, but the emotions are so close to the surface and I have to let them out kind of tears.
Up until now, it’s all felt a little odd, as my heart catches up with the reality of moving. Every day is so filled with the tasks of packing, there’s been little time to reflect on what it will mean to no longer sleep, cook, watch TV, and live here. I’ve begun to feel like I will be packing for the rest of my life, and believe me that is not a fun job.
Maybe one of the reasons this feels so strange, is it’s so contrary to what we’ve done all these years. We marry, buy a home, have a family, accumulate stuff, buy a bigger home to accommodate everything, and now we are moving into a smaller home with a smaller yard.
Lessons from the last few weeks
We wanted to keep our land line through our moves, as it would be one of the few, ongoing ways to find us. Century Link would not let us keep the same phone number at our townhome rental, so we are giving up our land line. It surprised me to feel sad about losing our phone number from the last 30some years.
Deciding to what to take to the townhome rental feels a little like packing for an extended vacation. I’m hoping that’s what living there with a minimum of our possessions will be like. With no yard for Rosie, our two year old basset hound, we’ll be forced to get more walking in.
We waste a lot of food by buying ahead. Even with a pantry with pull out shelves I found salad dressing that expired 5 years ago. Note to self: stick with only buying what we need for the next week.
How do people who work full time manage to move? Denny and I are lucky we are retired, and have made packing our full time job. There is no way I could come home and pack all night after working all day at a job.
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Your words really hit home – no pun intended. Thank you for sharing your heart. I can’t wait to hear about the next wonderful chapter!
Thank you, Nan. I never expected to be on this adventure! Right now the movers are loading up to take about half of our belongings into storage, and frankly, it’s making me a bit teary. But it’s all good. Just part of the process of closing a chapter and beginning another!
Uff da, Sue. Knowing we’ll be doing the same thing next spring or summer makes me cringe after reading this. I know it’s coming and I know it will be tons of work and I know it will be all-consuming and I know for sure it will be extremely bittersweet, but it will be a new adventure…as if we need any new adventures…
When we started the original process of preparing to move (three years ago) I was rather appalled at all the “stuff” I (not counting David’s stuff) had that I didn’t even remember I had but when I came across most things I still couldn’t part with them for emotional reasons. Most of those things uncovered precious memories that had moved to the back of my mind and hadn’t emerged for years, but once they came forward, I was helpless. I’m a terribly sentimental person – probably to a fault – and it was just easier to take those things with me, only to be placed back in storage in our new home, than to deal with the sadness it would cause me to part with it all. But I did manage to part with a few things…like some extra towels that held no sentimental value to my life…
Anyway, other than my shameful stash of fabric, I think we’ve whittled it all down to a manageable amount and our kids, hopefully, won’t gasp when they come to help move us. When all is said and done and we’re all settled in our new abodes, we’ll have to sit down over a cup of coffee and exchange stories…or just take a nap. Either one will work for me, I’m sure!
How smart you were to start the process 3 years ago! We started about 3 months ago. Maybe that wasn’t so bad for us; less time to think. We may very well have to get rid of more stuff after we get in our new house, but now I know how easy it is to sell things on Facebook Marketplace I’m not worried!;) Wishing you a smooth transition!
Well, it wasn’t smart of us to start three years ago. We thought we were actually going to move then but many things got in the way of that, as you know, and we had to stop the process and are just now beginning to believe it will really happen in the spring. Gotta trust God’s timing, I guess.