The Move

As a man, I obviously will never know what giving birth will feel like. However, one of the things that I hear all the time is how quickly women forget the pain of childbirth. Well, for me, moving is like pregnancy. I always forget how awful it is to move. The rollercoaster of emotions when deciding what to keep or what to throw away, the wild cravings because you may not have a chance to eat something for a while (I’ll miss you, fried chicken) and the sense of joy once it is all done. And finally, no matter how mentally prepared you might be, you are never truly ready.

For the past year, Amanda and I have focused on being more minimalistic. We thought we were doing really well too. We were able to sell over $5K worth of items and donated several car loads to the local charities (at least 25 bags of clothes for example). But somehow, we still had a ton of stuff to deal with.

I had the pleasure of being present during the entire move from our townhouse on Tuesday (Amanda had a hair appointment). It was a grueling 5 hours of pointing at things and telling them where to put it. I was pretty good at it. However, the panic started settling while loading the truck when the head mover guy told me that all the items may not fit in their truck (and therefore would not fit in our 10x20 unit). I start muttering bad words to myself with how poorly we did with removing the clutter. Fortunately we were able to get everything in the unit since we are also storing a good amount of items at my in-laws (thank you Kevin and Linda).

But in the end, we should have done better. We had plenty of opportunity to get rid of more things but decided to hold on to items “just in case.” These things could’ve done more good as a donation than stuck in the back of a storage unit. When these items are moved out of the storage unit and into our home, they will probably find a place in the back of a drawer until we move again and giving us another opportunity to quibble about not having donated the items sooner. We are very grateful to be in this type of position but we should have done better and hope to do so on our next move.

“It is preoccupation with possession, more than anything else, that prevents men from living freely and nobly.” —Bertrand Russell