Starting Over
Lots of people decide to change their lives and move and just pack up their house and take their stuff with them. It makes sense. But Chris and I have chosen a different route. Before we even decided that it was Hawaii we wanted to move to, we knew we wanted to get rid of 99.9% of our stuff and just start over from scratch. So how did we get to that decision?
The only one who doesn’t think our house is too big is our 100-lb lab/Great Dane mix, Rigsbee. Who is not allowed on the couch. Or our laps.
Of all the decisions we’ve made in the past few years, that one was the easiest. And I remember it very clearly. We were sitting in our living room and talking about moving. Chris said, “You know, there’s not a whole lot that I’m attached to and want to come with us.” I then looked around our living and thought about it. I looked at him and said, “in this room, the only things I care about and would definitely want to keep are 2 pieces of artwork on the walls (one painting of our 2 dogs, one painting of downtown Durham that my sister gave Chris).” That statement kind of startled both of us. So we started going room by room and thinking through what we wanted to keep. In the dining room, there was one painting on the wall that was the first “adult” purchase Chris and I ever made. We lived in Washington, DC for a year after we graduated from college. We were dead broke and trying to figure out what we wanted to do with our lives. We found this painting and fell in love with it. We bought it and had it framed. I don’t remember how much it cost, but it was probably around $150. Not that that’s not a lot of money, but at the time it was a FORTUNE. We still love it and it will go with us wherever we go. But everything else in the dining room could go. Including our dining room table and chairs, our wedding china (that we like, but we’ve only used twice in 10 years), my grandmother’s china cabinet (which I like, but I don’t associate it with her so I’m not sentimental about), and the piano.
We were surprised by how few things there were that we wanted to keep. Mostly it was artwork or pictures that we had hanging on our walls. We also each have a chest that our grandfathers built for us that we will definitely keep. We will also keep the rocking chair that my parents gave me when I graduated from college and Chris wants to keep his speakers (we’re still negotiating about those…). But pretty much everything else in the house we were able to quickly say we were fine getting rid of.
The only time our dining room has been used regularly: as my desk/puzzle table during the pandemic.
Honestly, that thought depressed the hell out of me. We had spent the last 17 years together collecting all this stuff. We had a 2700 square foot house that was filled, possibly even STUFFED with crap. Crap that not that many years ago had seemed incredibly important and valuable. Crap that we had spent a ton of money buying. Crap that neither of us wanted.
And just like that, the decision was made. When we move, we’ll take very few things with us. The 2 chests, some artwork, our clothes, and a couple odds and ends. But all the rest of our furniture will be sold/donated. And we’ve already sold most of the random crap that filled this house which I’ll talk more about in another post. I thought it might be hard to let everything go. And I’m sure when we walk out of this house for the last time that it will be bittersweet (maybe?), but so far, the process has been lovely. Emptying out all of our storage and getting rid of all the stuff we don’t use has felt great. And we are more determined than ever to make sure that our new life doesn’t get filled with crap.