So how do we do it ..? How to pack a life? What shall we sell, what shall we keep, what shall we lend to someone else to keep for us? Let me use a not super-chic paraphrase: all travelling families are more or less happy the same way, but each family is packing in its own way. The way we pack our lives tells us much about it. And us.
A piece of furniture sold a moment after uploaded to facebook.
Contents of the house. Dealing with the contents of the house can range from quite diverse ends. You can rent a furnished house, then you have to pack only the personal chattels. Take with you whatever you can carry and the rest you pack in boxes, stick them with your parents, so they miss you a bit more. Or with friends. Or whatever.
You can pack the house in a container or half a container if you do not actually have a lot of stuff and you can share it. The cost of this container can reach a few hundred dollars a month, not sure it’s worth it, but then it will be more akin to a classing “moving “, the one that you have probably already gone through a couple of times in your life. There is a good chance that it will be much less emotional and stressful while doing the final stretch of your runway.
We chose not to store and not to rent furnished. Instead we sell what we are not really attached to or actually catch a lot of room, and pass to friends for safekeeping the things we do not feel ready to part from. I wish that later in the trip we will turn up to be part of those cool people who don’t care about property and stuff, but for now, we still feel connected to our dining table. It really is very nice and comfortable. Our bedroom, we love it (if you are “old” blog read you might be able to drop a few guesses why. Ahm.). The luxury-non-Ikean-league bed of our eldest, well, we invested in it at the time … In short, the good stuff. Alongside, as mentioned, we sell quite a few things. Washing machine, for example, It does not seem so practical to me that electric appliances will be standing doing nothing for a year (or two). Preferably at the practical level is to sell it and buy in the future a different washer. It is also necessary to point out in shock I cannot believe that three years ago we were those people who buy a brand new washing machine from the manufacturer or a brand new TV. For me today it seems so unnecessary. When I can simply open the internet and buy it all second hand, in excellent condition, unused and in a third the price.
So I started an album on Facebook, and within the hour all the stuff took off. Both those we sold and those we were looking for a nice home at friends. It turns out that being a kind of Facebook institution in a dollar and a half is not that bad, practically speaking. Well, I exaggerated, some stuff have not yet been sold, but no matter. The thing is that on the one hand, we are still confident that our solution is practical, economic and logical but I want you to know that it also raises doubts, fears, panic and wacky conversations into the night. This actually makes the final stretch of our runway, the last month of the current phase of our lives, full of new choice in every moment of our way.
The other night, we lay together before bed. “OK.. that’s enough! Be quiet! I hear you worrying behind me!” Then through the concerns I hear him smiling and saying “I’m worrying good worries now.” Only my One is such a worries specialist to be able to classify them.
