Not, like, "opposite of stationary." Or, even more obscurely, that my life is inspirational to others -- (maybe I read too many book & movie reviews....)
Nope. I'm moving out of Alaska. As of this writing, I'm not even sure where. But I'm definitely going. Soon.
It's something I've been thinking about for a while -- catalyzed most recently by last year's divorce -- but somehow there's always been a good reason to stay. I do love Alaska. I've got a great job, amazing friends, an adorable home that I've honed a long time to reflect my personal version of "cozy."
But like all things sedentary and familiar, accumulation accrues. (See: rolling stone, moss.) And my life has, indeed, accrued. Books, furniture, extra plates for dinner parties, extra bedding for house guests, extra hiking gear in case an out-of-town friend comes to visit... In spite of being on the opposite end of the hoarding spectrum from these folks:
... neither have I embraced the "Tiny House" movement:
So when I made the final decision to sell my house and relocate... elsewhere.... (It has to be -- in my mind, in any case -- final, so as to avoid any take-backs. I'm great at take-backs), I realized I couldn't really realistically expect to take all my stuff with me. For one thing, one of the destination options is Scotland, and how much am I really willing to pay to ship that Calvin & Hobbes boxed set overseas? Or that Stabbing Westward CD?
In the past, the anticipation of an upcoming purge has filled me with dread, foreseeing day after day of Sophie's Choice-level decisions between beloved books and music, furniture and clothing, ... the artwork!
My move from Wisconsin to Alaska was a bit like that, but I was a starving vet student at the time and had far fewer valuable possessions then than I do now. And even then, I still shipped up my sofa... a sleeper-sofa, no less. Three thousand miles for a piece of furniture worth maybe two hundred dollars. Maybe.
But this move feels different. I am eager for The Purge. I've imposed the strictest of guidelines: I don't want to be weighed down by a bunch of "stuff" to take with me, nor do I want to pay a ton of money to either a shipping company to send things overseas or to a storage company to hold on to things I haven't the cojones to let go of for maybe six months, a year, more.... I am finding that I actually enjoy the brutal elimination of all but my most vital possessions. It has been liberating, to say the least.
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| (Really just looking for an excuse to include a Hugh Jackman photo; nice legs, that guy) |
For one thing, I no longer want to get MORE stuff. The patio furniture & new grill I was gonna buy this summer? Nope. Or the chop saw I was thinking of buying for some home improvement projects? No, no new stuff. No acquisitions. I even walked into a bookstore today with two boxes of books to sell and wasn't even the least bit tempted to look around for a new book to buy (Ok, maybe just a bit -- there was a cool book about birds of prey..... A leopard's not gonna change her spots overnight, y'know!). Still, I don't think I previously realized how much time & energy I was spending on thinking about or researching acquiring of more Stuff until that impulse was no longer present.
As for stuff I already have at home, well, I no longer have to wonder if I ever really am going to use that roll of garden fencing or not. -- Always seemed a shame to get rid of it, since I know that as soon as I do, I'm just going to have to go out and buy a new roll for some other garden project or dog situation! -- Nope. Nothing is going to happen in the next six months which necessitates me keeping a 50-foot roll of fence... "just in case." Out it goes!
Same with all my books -- god, all my books! -- Such good friends they were, even though many of them were mere specimens in a museum, to be lovingly touched and fondly remembered without the actual time to be opened and enjoyed... someday, always some rainy/snowy cold winter day that never comes. Some of the books lived their whole lives that way, never read, always promised. "Hip: A History." All apologies, friend.
All the photo printer paper, and colored pencils, and crepe paper streamers. All the strings of party lights, and board games, and place mats for dinner parties. Dinner plates, silverware. Pots & pans (except that fabulous poele from Paris, I'm keeping that). All in a pile for the big Garage Sale. Truth is, I don't really even care about the money from the sale -- I should, I suppose, as the last garage sale I had made me several hundred bucks. (AND, I'm going to have to re-buy at least some of this stuff when I end up... wherever.) I just would like to think at least some of it will go to a good home and be reused, instead of contributing to the giant pile of rejected-but-perfectly-usable stuff in the landfill.
I don't even know where most of the Stuff came from. It just sort of made its way into my house and then never left. I mean, I have room. It's just me in this big ol' house -- and even before that, it was just me & my then-husband. Lots of extra closet space, to fill up with junk.
... Which is another benefit of the Purge: a final break with the past.
As readers of this blog will already know, this has been a hard year. I weathered the divorce the best I could but it was still devastating. I was urged by many friends and family members not to flee this town, reminded of my good job and good friends, my familiar home & familiar town, a good quality of life for my dogs. "No such thing as a Geographical Cure," said my sister. And of course, that old psychology Life Stress inventory, where changing too many big things at once accrues too many "change points" and is correlated with poor physical health, as well.
Still, this is a small town, and many of the things my ex & I used to enjoy doing together, I still enjoy doing alone. Just a few days ago, I hiked up the same trail he & I had hiked last year just a couple days after he told me he was leaving me, and I thought if I could just prove to him what a great person I was he would change his mind -- Silly, that. I took this photo that day. It was an awful day. He didn't change his mind, of course. In hindsight, I'm glad he didn't.
And, a few days ago, that memory was more of a bittersweet vaguely embarrassing feeling than the sharp shooting pain it would have been just a few months ago, but it's still there. I know now that I could stay here and rebuild my own life on top of those memories, reclaim this town for myself. But I'm also just done here, and I feel okay about that. Good, even. Excited, eager to live instead of just surviving.
And the Purge is part of that, too. Getting rid of Stuff, selling this house, moving out of the home I spent the past fifteen years in, I'm proud of the house & home I created here. It served its purpose, but now it's time to move on.
And so I continue to brutally but exhilaratingly carve out all but the vital parts, to either take with me or store until I do decide where I'll settle. My dad's typewriter, on which he would peck out his little letters to send to me, from the time I was about twenty years old. He always spelled "shining" as "shinning," my genius father, and it always made me smile, as it still does today, though now with a little tear in my eye, as well. No chance I'm getting rid of that.
I hope people can use my stuff to build onto their own lives. But it's OK if they don't. Once it leaves my hands, it's in the Past. And my way is cleanly and weightlessly forward, into the Future.
