When you do the crazy thing, it’s exciting! The thing that other people said, “Wow! That sounds amazing!” and “Good for you for being so brave!”
Wait, so brave? I’m being brave? I thought I was taking the easy way out. You know, curtain call, bow, “Thanks for all the turmoil world but I’m out!”
Saying I’m going to sell everything I own and move to Costa Rica to flee the rat race and devote myself to being creative and getting healthy sounds amazing, right?
When you actually do the crazy thing, it is scary.
To leave the US, the only country I’ve ever lived in, and move to Costa Rica, my husband and I sold 95% of the stuff we’d acquired over our 35-year relationship. That’s a lot of baggage to shed. Shuffling through my things I realized I’d formed attachments to furniture, linens, and knickknacks. I could remember where I’d bought them, why I enjoyed them, and how many times I’d packed them up and moved them around the country.
Since Don and I joined households in 1988 we’d moved about twelve times. All over the US; Texas to Boston to Cincinnati to San Diego and beyond.
When we started dating in 1987 I bought him an armoire for our first Christmas. Can you imagine that? I’m 18 he’s 22, he’s in flight school in Alabama, I’m in San Diego and I buy him an art deco, 1920s armoire. I was obviously thinking long term when it came to this relationship.
We still have that armoire, it made the cut, that’s what we say about the stuff we were keeping, it made the cut.
And that’s a big deal because we had to reduce our worldly goods to a 5x10 storage unit, think of it as a smallish sized walk-in closet. My husband didn’t think we could do it; I accepted the challenge. My real-life Tetris skills are unmatched. So, the whole of our worldly possessions must fit in this storage unit and two suitcases, two duffle bags, two backpacks and two carry-on bags.
What stays? What goes? And how do you decide?
I am a hoarder of memories. I have an autograph book from when I was 8 signed by famous people like my Grandma Clark and my Uncle Roger. I have a Dr. Suess book entitled “This is Me” that I filled in pages of info about myself, I remember getting the book. It was during one of my prolonged hospital stays where something was wrong with me and I was in for testing, lots of testing, days and days of testing.
Touching these things I’d kept for so long released memories I hadn’t had time to remember. Inanimate items imbued with the power to send me back in time. About one-third of our storage unit is filled with bin after bin of memories; our daughters school art projects, videos of them as babies on high 8 tapes, a program from “The Jerry Springer Musical” that we went to see in the West End, my brownie sash with my badges and patches. It seems like disregarding a life well lived to toss those treasures out.
One item I never planned to keep tripped me up when I went to sell it. I had a lovely, simple, solid wood writing desk that I very much enjoyed the look of. I advertised it on Facebook marketplace and someone asked how long I’d had it. I had to think about that. I bought it in Dallas when we first moved into our home in Rockwall, towards the end of 2005. Wow, I’d had it 17 years! It still looked as lovely as the day I got it. There was a tug at my heart, a piece of me embedded in this desk breaking off and causing quite a sting.
The desk went to a good home. A doctoral student plans to write her thesis at it.
I took pictures and let it go.
With each item I released; my car, my dining table, my bread maker, the cool matching pillows for my bed, I felt a twinge of sadness to see it go. Then, out of my sight, I felt lightness, a new freedom, and a desire to ditch more stuff.
It took weeks to whittle it down to just the stuff we’d put in our bedroom. The only things in there were the items that had made the cut for the first trip. We stashed a couple of bins of stuff that we’ll shuttle down in duffle bags on future trips back and forth.
Although it wasn’t a lot, it looked like too much to fit into 2 duffle bags, 2 suitcases, 2 backpacks, and 2 carry-ons.
After some careful rolling and stuffing, strategic use of those storage bags you can vacuum seal to reduce their size, a bit of crying and more than one pep talk, we were packed. (TRAVEL TIP: use those vacuum sealed bags! You put your stuff in in and suck all the air out with a pump or a vacuum. It makes big fluffy items smaller and protects them from moisture. I got 5 sets of 108” curtains here in those bags and despite being nearly drowned in a Costa Rican deluge they arrived undamaged!)
You do have to be brave to give up what you know, what’s familiar, what’s comfortable, to seek out something new just for the sake of experiencing it.
Change is scary, acknowledge that, recognize that, even have a good sit-down cry about it and when the time comes; do it scared.
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