Relative Something

Well, we got the first part out of the way. The old house is empty. That was quite a day. The truck showed up bright and early, and they pretty much worked straight through to around 6 p.m. carrying a few precious pieces of furniture, and way too many boxes of crap. They pretty much filled the trailer up. We have accumulated too much stuff, no doubt about it. Take away my uncluttering badge, now. I have not earned one.

With a little luck, today’s experience will encourage us to be more aware, but I fear the added space of our new home may foil my dreams of becoming clutter-free. I know that it influenced some of my packing decisions regarding what to discard and what to take with me. I might find a use for the stuff, and I will have plenty of places to store things.

It has me thinking of the photo book by Peter Menzel, “Material World,” where he captured portraits of families around the world, posing with most of their possessions placed strategically around them. I shudder to think what our portrait would look like.

One humorous moment yesterday was when the movers popped out the front door with a dresser on their dolly, obviously laboring. One of the guys pulled open a drawer to see if we had left it full of clothes. It was empty. They were surprised at how heavy it was. My comment was, “They don’t make ’em like they used to!”

My siblings will appreciate that it was the dresser from our parents’ bedroom set.

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Today, we will do a final clean-up of the old property, and make a purchase of a device to give us a mobile internet connection that we will test on our new property for a couple of weeks.

Tomorrow will be step two: the closings.