The Great Move (Otherwise Known as the Purge)

Everyone should have to pack up their stuff and move every five years. It should be a rule. No one should ever stay in one place for so long that they have more stuff than they know what to do with. We all accumulate “priceless treasures” over the years and in the end we look at all of it in utter shock and realize it’s just stuff and definitely not priceless. Now that Mitch has relocated to Seattle and is working full time there, it has been left up to me to pack up our belongs and clean out the house in order to put it on the market and get it sold.

It is and has been a daunting task, but I think it has been better that I’m doing the clearing out part without Mitch. I have discovered that he is a secret hoarder and left unchecked he would have covered every inch of open space with opened boxes of nuts and bolts, screws, the odd tool here and there and a large DSW shoe bag filled with old gloves (you never know when you might want to stick your hand in an old nasty glove). I even found a plastic container filled with empty shot gun shell boxes (because empty boxes two inches by three inches will come in handy sometime). I found a large spool of coaxial cable, probably enough to re-run our entire house twice over. These are all things I found in the basement and I haven’t even had a chance to look in the garage. That will require a very large dumpster.

I can’t say I’m much better about throwing things away, but I’m not quite as bad. We are the children of parents that grew up during The Great Depression where you saved every scrap you had because at some point in time you were going to need it and there was no money to go and buy a replacement. I grew up watching my mother wash used empty plastic bags, turn them inside out to dry to reuse them. She smoothed out used aluminum foil for reuse. Mitch’s father is way worse. He saves everything. Their garage is packed from the back of the garage to the front with extra furniture, boxes of things and overflow from the house. We are not that bad, but could easily be.

Sorry I digress. As I started sorting through the containers in the basement that stored old blankets and pillows I would set aside some for Goodwill and pack some. Then it dawned on me the reason these were in containers was that we didn’t use them. I didn’t even remember putting them in the containers and storing them. So out went all of old blankets for a full size bed, mind you we have a king size bed now.

My problem was that I was looking at all of the stuff and what we paid for each and every thing. I was putting an emotional value on stuff, not based on what it meant to me but what it cost me to acquire. I didn’t need it and wasn’t using it, had even forgotten I had it, but it was still in good condition so I was attaching a false need for it. As soon as I got over that hurdle, I have been able to make multiple trips to charities with a boat load of “stuff”. I am not a “garage sale” person. I have neither time nor patience to set all of my belongings in the driveway, sit around and wait for someone to come and haggle over pennies for stuff I don’t want.

I am getting to the end of the purge for the inside of the house, and after a ninety minute massage, pedicure and two bottles of wine, I hope to have my strength back and will tackle “The Garage”. If you don’t hear from me in a few days send in a search team.