Packing up House and Home

I have spent the last two weeks frenetically packing up my house and selling off all my worldly possessions – well for the most part.  This is an interesting experience.  Material goods can weigh you down.  But in the process of deciding what to keep and what to sell or give away, a person has to be ruthless. My storage locker is only 4 feet by 6 feet by 8 feet.  So I decided that once it is full, it is full.  The only furniture I have kept is my dining room table and chairs and a coffee table that I painted.  The rest is just my personal effects.  But let me tell you, they still add up.  It is crazy.

I have always thought that having your house burn down is almost a mixed blessing since it takes all the decision elements out of reducing material possessions.  I had thought of keeping more things but most people encouraged me not to since really, I would just be paying for storing them for however long, and I probably could just buy them all new once I know where I am going to live.  And that is a key point as well.  Where will I be living after all this is said and done…after my travels.

I have no idea.  For that reason, the less left behind that has to be dealt with, the better.

But I am almost done.  By the end of this weekend my house will be essentially empty and cleaned and I will no longer be living here.  Strange these changes.  If I stop and think about it for too long, I feel a little melancholy.  So I don’t think about it.  No point in getting sad about something which is passing.  Besides, I did not know what life was like with this house before I built it.  All good things come and go.  Now I leave a space open for something new.  And that is the exciting part.

The sun is setting on this chapter and a new one begins.