Letting Go

Purging of things, people, food, and words is hard for me. I am a keeper. I have letters from the 1960’s and 70’s. My favorite pair of jeans from high school resides in a box alongside other mementos from the longest four years of my life. I still cherish people that only reach out at Christmas time. I have been known to search for long lost friends on facebook late at night while drinking a glass of wine. My refrigerator would make the witch-hunting, date-checkers orgasm. Books are the most popular thing in my house. Long story short is always my goal, I often fail. Even now I ramble as I get to the point. Downsizing from a 1600 square foot home with a garage and an attic to a not quite 300 square foot travel trailer is the reason for my current conflict. I, borderline hoarder, am embarking on a three year voyage as a full-time RV’er. I must lesson the load.

I am reminded of my luck at being the mother to three beautiful daughters as I begin sorting my things. Many of my collections of stuff find their origins in those three girls. Special baby clothes, pottery art projects, school papers, baseball cards, stuffed animals, have all found their way into my attic. Awesome! These items will find their way back to their rightful owners. Now that I think of it, they may be grateful to not have to wait for my demise in order to be beneficiary of some of my treasures. I am so blessed to have three girls with homes of their own to assist me with this downsizing. Phew! I have escaped the true ridding of things by the “things relocation program.”

The amount of square footage should not require the removal of people in my life as I only live with my husband and he gets to stay. Alas, homeostasis in the current friend category can not be totally achieved. We have two friends who are occasional house guests. They stay with us when they want to stay near the beach on the cheap. We may have to loose them though. They do not seem to know that toilets flush. Okayish in a home with bathrooms removed from living areas, not okay in a tiny camper. I am happy to have friends that still want to stay with us and have good hygiene and manners.

Fortunately, our new refrigerator will be self limiting. It is only 8.2 cubic feet. As I am not fond of jars of old olives falling out of the refrigerator onto my toe upon opening the door, I think I can keep up with this task. (wow, what a sentence!) Which leads me to my final problem.

Words! I own more than 1000 books. Not bragging, I love books. Many people will no doubt sympathize with my plight. I have managed to sort the books into four piles: donate, keep, keep at daughter’s houses, keep at mom’s house. Again, those daughters sure do come in handy. Not only can I pass on some of my favorite collected authors, I can also visit them and borrow them anytime I want. Plus, my overlarge bookcases will look fantastic in their living rooms! My love of books was encouraged by my mom at an early age. It is to her that I owe my love affair with historical fiction and modern poetry. When I remind her of this, how can she refuse the storage of a few books at her house, right? (more on my collection of journals in another post.)

I think I may have this problem licked. My husband says our new home can bear a load of about 4000 lbs. I must go now to make sure he knows what he is talking about and then figure how to go about weighing my remaining stuff.