Tag Archives: moving

On the move

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I feel like my last month has been nothing but packing up and moving:

  1. Retirement and leaving a building that was my work home for 13 years.
  2. Moving everything out of my bedroom and two upstairs bathrooms for a renovation/upgrade.
  3. Hopping on a ferry (this morning) and packing up my daughter. She’s heading back to the mainland next month to do her Masters.

Putting life’s ‘stuff’ in boxes, weeding out the unwanted, and still holding on to more than we should.

Moves are healthy. They are the times we actually do reminisce and recall the memories we cherish. They are also the times we let go of things that we should have long ago. That said, the unpacking is not nearly as much fun. It’s one of those things you’ve got to slog through, but it sure feels good when it’s all done!

Accumulation of stuff

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I’m in the process of clearing out my office. It’s fascinating to see the kind of things that accumulate in an office when you’ve been in it over a decade. I am admittedly comfortable with clutter, my slightly ADD brain does not come equipped with OCD superpowers to have a place for everything and everything in its place. So I admittedly have a lot of ‘unnecessary’ stuff.

The hardest things to get rid of are keepsakes that have sentimental value, and yet they’ve ended up in a drawer or the back of a bookshelf, and haven’t been seen for years. While they bring back some memories I’m left wondering, ‘If I take this home, where, except for a back of a drawer or bookshelf, would I put these and when in my life will I look at them again?’

I’m finding the process simultaneously cathartic and melancholy. Melancholy is the wrong word, it’s not a sadness it’s a solemn reflectiveness. I’m excited to be over, to move on to new things, and yet these hidden reminders in my office pull me back to thoughts and memories of the people and experiences I have enjoyed and even loved about this job.

And back to work I go. Serious question: Do I keep the the small hand carved song bird? The piece of brain coral? The stamp set of my name in Chinese? The beautifully hand painted rocks? How about the crochet rainbow bumblebee?

I’m going to be here a while.

Practicality over sentimentality

My brother-in-law was speaking to my father-in-law about moving into an assisted living home from a rancher. He said, “I guess practicality needs to be a priority over sentimentality,” and my father-in-law agreed.

Moving isn’t easy. Downsizing isn’t easy. Letting go of things with sentimental value isn’t easy.

The knowledge that ‘we can’t take it with us’ on the next journey anyway offers little solace. Furniture, framed pictures, books, souvenirs, trinkets, antiques, old treasures and keepsakes all hold memories within them. Reflections of the past stir, and the desire to hold on to yet another item, another memory, pulls at the heartstrings.

Eventually realization kicks in… practicality over sentimentality. You just can’t take everything with you.