There seems to be so many parts to getting my buildings sold, my stuff gone, and buying my new van and getting on the road. I’m about to put the building I live in on the market. I live (for now) in a huge warehouse. I moved out of my home a few years back and live and work in an old factory. I love it, but it is HUGE! So a lot of my stuff from the house got moved in here, and stuff from my old business (handcrafted soaps) never left. It didn’t seem to matter because I had so much space. But now, ready to sell it, I know it will show better if I clear out most of the stuff I’ve collected over the years. I’ve scheduled an auctioneer to come on June 1 to sell about 70% of my belongings. I will keep only what I really need to live and once the building is under contract, we’ll have the second auction to sell everything that is left that won’t fit in the van.
I have been working for a month to let go and clear out. Surprisingly, the “letting go” part is not nearly as difficult as I thought it would be. I just pick something up and think “Is this absolutely necessary?” If not, it goes. If it seems necessary, I ask “Will it fit in the van?” If not, it must go and I must get a smaller version somewhere down the line. Actually, most of “what is necessary” is only necessary (or seems so) as long as I’m living here. I clearly can’t get rid of my stove or fridge, or pots and pans and dishes. It seems premature to get rid of my sofa, TV, bed, desk, computer, etc. I’m still living here and still using these things. But most everything else can go, and I’m finding I don’t really have much of an attachment to things anymore (except photos of past dogs). So you’d think it would be easy to put everything into the two garage sized rooms where I’m storing stuff for the auction. But, no. Not that easy.
I’m finding I have two problems: the first is that I get distracted. I go into the closet to clear out what I don’t need and come across a box of photos. They have no value to anyone but me, so they aren’t really auction items. But I can’t just throw the entire box into the trash. So I look. And I can get lost for hours, looking through photos of dead dogs, dead friends, current friends’ pictures from when we were young and foolish (before we became old and foolish). Some I just can’t part with. I can’t really take photo albums with me. I just don’t have the space. I could put them on a hard drive or thumb drive. I will have to sort first because I’m not scanning every photo I have. So I throw out the duplicates, or bad photos, or ones of people who I don’t know who they are anymore. I keep one photo of each dog who has passed, and let the rest go. Then onto DVD’s and CD’s. Same thing. I can’t take them all with me. Which ones are important? Again, it takes hours to sort through, make piles and say good-bye to half.
The second problem I’m having, is stuff within stuff. I have three big file cabinets I want to get rid of. All of them are full. One has tax stuff from 15 years ago. That was easy to clear out. Some have warranties and instruction manuals from things that I’ve already thrown out. Those are easy to throw away. But then there is stuff about this building, paperwork for insurance, my car, my Medicare, and all my clients’ files. Those need to be carefully sorted, and kept until I’m actually ready to move out.
So all week, I’ve devoted an hour or so each day to this process. One day I walk through and pick up only things that I don’t think will sell at auction, and that I don’t (or soon won’t) need anymore. I fill big trash barrels and take them out to the dumpster. The next day is clothing. I have been pretty brutal in letting go of anything that doesn’t fit right, or that I’ve not worn in the past year. And still I have way more clothing than I can take with me in the van. So I let go of what I can, and put it in bags to go to Goodwill. I’ve probably cleared out about half my clothing. It’s probably not the most efficient way to clear out since I’ll have to come through next month and get rid of half of what’s left, but at least I’ve made a start. And I’ve decided my new life is about process, about the journey and not so much about when I arrive at the destination. So this feels like it is part of the process. It will happen. I currently have 4500 square feet. I’ll be moving into maybe 75 square feet? It’s definitely going to take a couple passes through to whittle everything down to only what is going in the van.