Sorting, Packing, and Separating: Here We Go Again

(How Much Stuff Do We Really Need?)

We are packing, again, for our next adventure of two months.  Given how many places we've visited this year, you'd think we'd be packing experts. But we are not, at least not in the emotional responses to packing. Of course, this year we've been pairing packing with selling real estate so that combo tends to up the emotional stakes. No matter what,  
packing for long trips brings out our grouchy, anxious sides. 

It all started in Chicago where for six months we sorted, tossed, packed, cleaned, repaired, and donated our stuff and then repeated the cycle as needed. By the end, all we wanted was to go. Have it over. Move on. Vamoose.

But we had stuff and owning stuff means responsibility -- for the stuff and for the decisions about it, including what to leave and what to keep. If one is traveling for months at a time....the stuff decisions before hand can seem endless.

Beyond that, separating from one's stuff is not easy. Making the toss-keep-store decisions evoke all kinds of competing feelings. For us, the big stuff was stored in the Midwest while we lived elsewhere. It's the smaller stuff that caused issues and questionable decisions. I concerned myself with what to do with my lavender suede heels, the dried decorative sticks purchased at an outlet store, extra hiking boots, our 10 year-old ice chest from Walmart, old off-season clothing, random odd bits of our lives. I wondered where to stash them and yet at the same time wondered why these items mattered. 

We traveled from Chicago to Palm Desert, CA in our SUV packed to the roof with stuff, our bicycles hooked to the back. We looked like modern day members of the Joad family. Our stay in Palm Desert was temporary  for we had months of travel ahead of us. Everything we brought with us could not travel with us. Some of it must stay. We must separate.

Our plan was to travel for several months, first to Bend to house hunt, then to Miami, a cruise ship, Europe, another ship, countless hotels, planes, trains and many places beyond. Our portable stuff was restricted to one carry on bag, one rolling duffle, and one extraordinarily large purse or in R's case over-stuffed backpack -- each.  The airlines have weight and bag limits that we must meet. Plus we'd be toting these babies on and off trains, buses, and who knows what for a long time. They needed to be manageable. It was in Palm Desert that we realized we were attempting to take too much stuff.  While we had separated from our home, city, work, and major stuff, we hadn't fully separated from the belief that we needed much more than we really do. Letting go of such a belief proved challenging.

We repacked our bags in Palm Desert, leaving many items behind. In Bend, we repacked again, filling a tote with more stuff for storage. Throughout the months of travel, we both discarded many more items -- shoes, t-shirts, shirts, blouses, make up. We shedded our extra stuff and discovered that both of us managed nicely with what remained. It seemed we had what we needed.

Now we are packing again. You think we would have learned the lesson of just enough, right? For this current trip, both of us want to sneak just a little bit more into our duffles. Stuff one little corner of our carry ons with one more something.  Are we greedy? Hard to satisfy people?
 Perhaps.

Or is letting go of excess and only holding on to what you really need, keeping just enough, a difficult lesson to really learn?

It Is Not Just About the Dollars: Decision Making Part 2

Obviously, all of us have different ways of reaching decisions.  What we ultimately want is to land comfortably on one side of a debate -- stay or go? Travel or settle down? Delay or get moving? After much internal and external debate, I decided to take the year and transition to a new life and locale.

However, to reach the decision was for me a complicated process.  Once all the practical financial pieces were considered as well as the practical aspects of closing my practice, selling our home and all that, the real work began, the emotional work. I allowed the therapist part of my brain to contemplate the outcome of any decision.  As I visualized the future,  I imagined what it would feel like to cycle for three hours without concern about rushing to my next task, to prepare dinner in a leisurely manner, to travel longer than the typical two weeks. I also started considering my future self, envisioning who I might be in the future.  At various times, I played out different scenarios in my mind, fantasizing what staying two more years in Chicago would look like and feel like. Images of dragging myself through another polar vortex winter with its minus 15 degree temperatures came to mind as did visions of hot, humid summers. I compared those images with what it might feel like to, if the weather or routine got to me, "pick up and go" (a favorite expression of my retired husband). I imagined I would feel free.

But in all honesty, my lived experience also factored into deciding when to make the transition. Life experience is a great teacher and we are lucky if we learn lessons on the first pass. My own mother died of a sudden heart attack at age 55, never having experienced retirement freedom. That early loss was instructive. In more recent years, a beloved brother-in-law passed at age 62 with not much more than a month between diagnosis and death. A much cherished teacher, mentor, clinical consultant and friend died at age 55. We were the same age. Folks my own age were dying, slightly older family members were dying, friends and family members were suddenly challenged by serious illnesses. I understood in a deep way that life is finite, presents without guarantees, should not be taken for granted.  Life is a great teacher. I paid attention to its lessons and landed on the side of now is the time for a transition.