Chris and I give ourselves two weeks to get our house organized and prepared to be vacated for about 4 months prior to our tenants moving in. What were we thinking! As previously mentioned in  Quittin’ Day  I allowed my job to leave me little time for anything else in my life, and what little time is left is devoted to my ailing mother and my precious grandsons. Chris gets some meager leftovers. Not a great way to start a marriage. My mother’s story will be featured in another post, but let me tell you, it’s what lifetime movies are made of. I’m convinced that the stress of my mother’s situation further escalates my keen awareness of the need for better work/life balance and I feel a sense of shame for not managing this better.

But I digress. Chris and I have several discussions about what to do with our house as we travel and finally land on renting it out as a furnished house. As luck would have it, we find the perfect tenants, my daughter and her husband. They make the decision to relocate to Pittsburgh. Their only condition is that they want us to clear out our stuff. Yikes!

We have 2 weeks from  Quittin’ Day to when we hit the road for our first leg of the journey. We booked a place in Massanutten resort near  Shenandoah National Park. We figure we’d need some cushy relaxation after our whirlwind of getting the hell out of dodge. So, what do we do with all of our stuff that’s packed into our 1200 sq foot house. I’ve already learned that it’s much easier accumulating stuff, than getting rid of it. After my divorce several years ago I had to sell my house and downsize. I had garage sales, I donated stuff, and still I had too much stuff. Getting rid of the ‘poisons’ in my house was the most difficult. You know, things like bug sprays, and weed killers, and paint. TVs were a big nuisance too, as well as old computers and printers. I’ve since changed my buying practices and no longer buy harmful and difficult to dispose of products in large quantities, buying only what I need for the project at hand. So, prior to me moving into Chris’s house I had significantly rid myself of stuff, but Chris had not. He’s been in this house for a quarter of a century, and has lots of stuff, and is rather attached to it. And it’s not all his. Some belongs to his daughter, and some to his ex-wife. Oh my. Our wonderful old Pittsburgh house has few closets that are small, made for back in the day when folks did not have so much stuff. What will we do with the stuff packed in our closets and cupboards? We have 2 weeks! Nothing like a deadline to get movin’ and we do.

We designate certain areas of the house to store stuff we want to keep: A small bedroom, a large cabinet in the dining room and most of the basement, and our single car garage. We manage to completely empty out all of our closets, cabinets, dressers, and cupboards. Our tenants will now be able to enjoy our furnished house and all of its amenities, including the infamous Pittsburgh toilet in the basement with built in privacy because it’s surrounded with stuff.

The rest of our stuff gets sorted into things we’re taking with us, things we sell on Craig’s list, recyclables, donations, and garbage. Chris really gets into it. We’re amazed at how much stuff we’re able to get rid of. It’s freeing to let go. Sometimes detaching from stuff is hard, but we learn later the grief of losing stuff is nothing compared to the joy of the freedom it brings. Probably the hardest thing is the concern of throwing away things of value. But we quickly realize that a thing has no monetary value unless someone wants to buy it, otherwise, it’s just taking up valuable space. This purging of our stuff feels magnificent and is highly recommended.

Just a few more things we feel we have to do before we hit the road. We partially prep our cars for long term storage. We top off our tank and insert stabilizer. We place my 2004 Subaru Outback into the single detached garage, and pack in the canoe and kayaks (not going on the trip with us). We purchase a cover for Chris’s 2004 Toyota Matrix, a standard shift, and park it in front of garage. We clean the yard. I realize I’ll miss the bloom of the daffodils that I planted in the fall. We don’t get any kind of lawn service…thank goodness for good neighbors. We forward our mail to our PO Box in California, where we have a tiny house in a tiny town out in the middle of nowhere, that we affectionately call the ‘Back of Beyond’.  Since I no longer have employer sponsored health insurance, I purchase obama care insurance. We give our neighbor and kids a key to our house, along with our contact information. We clean, clean, and clean again. The house never looked so good. Very little time for repairs, but most of the clutter is gone, and the house is as ready as it can get for our tenants to move in July. But the biggest take away for me is the excitement I feel at learning to live more simply and with more moment to moment awareness. It reminds me of the quote by Mahatma Ghandi to “live simply so others may simply live”.

We are so excited to finally feel ready to hit the road. ‘Til next time – Diane