Stuff

Recently I was posed a question by a friend who is moving to a different country; “How hard was it to move out?”

Short answer: easy and hard, super helpful, I know.

Long answer went something like this:

When we left Minnesota, I owned a house and house-worth of stuff. That’s a lot of stuff. It took a good two months to purge, pack, and purge again. Not to mention that the house needed to be put on the market and sold. Leaving California, we had significantly less stuff and (un)thankfully no house to put on the market. Despite less stuff, we needed to purge to what we could fit in the van or put into storage with family or friends.

Purging stuff is hard, physically, mentally, and emotionally. The physical aspect is obvious. A sofa can be very heavy. Bedroom sets need to fit back through narrow hallways and doorframes. To save our relationship, I had our friend help Jake move furniture to our RPV apartment. When leaving the apartment, had those interested in our furniture come to help Jake take it out. Don’t look at me like that, I am good at a lot of things in life, but upper body strength is not one.

The mental aspect is like a game of chess. Do we need a car camping tent and a backpacking tent? We use both regularly and will likely continue to use both once we settle after vagabonding. Is it worth keeping the coleman for the future…spoiler, we didn’t. How much do you sell it for or do you donate it just to be done? Our mattress hit really hard in the this area. We bought it at the Memorial Day sale 2022. Yes, we had our mattress for maybe 9 months and it was a glorious mattress. It decidedly would not fit in the van. So we sold it, for a fraction of what we paid for it because we couldn’t take it with or store it, and that hurt.

Emotionally? Why is this even a thing? I kept clothing because they held fond memories, not that they would ever be fashionable or fit again. I had an entire tote in storage of printed t-shirts from high school and college, you know the type I speak of when you belonged to a club or sports team. I opened it and had to immediately close it and told my mom to donate the lot. I hadn’t seen those clothes in years and hadn’t thought of them in about as many but it was too difficult to actually bring them to the goodwill myself. I know this isn’t just a me thing, Jake had a difficult time purging coffee mugs.

So yes, it was difficult to purge stuff. It took several cycles before we could fully move into the van. Even now we are occasionally purging. But having less stuff has made me feel lighter. I have only two totes of important keepstakes (diplomas, heirlooms, etc) and three boxes of books (the result of three purges, we all have our weaknesses) in storage and what I keep in the van. Every once in a while, I miss my super amazing mattress, but when we settle again I’m buying another one. I will never embrace true minimalism, I love my blankets too much and outdoor activities are just easier when you have the additional gear and not using backcountry gear for everything. I have learned that I also don’t see a future with stuff for the sake of stuff either.