Fun fact: I have moved at least 14 times between 1986 and 2014. Except for a cross-country move to California and back in the mid 90s, most of those moves were relatively easy compared to what I just went through a couple of weeks ago.
The backstory is that my husband and I decided to build a new house, and even though it won't be ready to move into until 2025, our realtor advised us back in May to put our house up for sale right away because the market was hot. Also, in case you haven't noticed, it's an election year and she stressed that the closer we get to election time, potential buyers tend to stay where they are and put their moving plans on hold.
Thankfully, our house sold in less than one week back in mid-May, the closing was set for July 31st and we began the arduous task of packing. Our plan was to put most things into storage until the new house was ready and only move essentials to an available one bedroom apartment we already owned.
If there is an easy part to moving, it's identifying those items you love yet do not need immediately that can readily be placed into moving boxes and saved for next year when you will once again have room for said items. The hard part is realizing that you have accumulated way too much stuff over your entire life and you must trash, donate or somehow find a good reason to keep these other things, most of which you've forgotten about and didn't know you had until you discovered that you still had them.
Some days, I was Pluto incarnate...digging deep, unearthing relics from my past and releasing them to the ethers. Other days, my cup runneth over with abundance of still usable items (mostly clothing and books) and my generous inner Jupiter joyously gave it all away. But then, as the remaining items to be considered revealed themselves, my weary soul surrendered and I couldn't bear to part with one more thing.
And that is how I famously (read: foolishly) thought I easily downsized (albeit temporarily) from a large 3-bedroom house with an equally large basement to a tiny one bedroom apartment with limited storage space and 21 steps straight up to the front door.
While we had professional movers store our furniture and numerous boxes we had packed, a feat that required four able-bodied young men to efficiently stack like Jenga blocks in the moving van, my husband and I moved the rest of our stuff to the apartment ourselves. What were we thinking?!?! We are not 30 years old anymore!
What I thought would be mostly clothing, a few kitchen items, towels and bedding turned into large plastic bins of shoes (mostly mine and rarely worn), a heavy Staub Dutch oven (rarely used), four skillets, 3 hair dryers and an abundance of Pyrex storage containers (we cook a lot). But wait, there's more!
It took us five days to get everything out of the house and moved to the apartment. Fortunately, our buyers are the kindest young couple and gave us the grace of continuing to move out even a few days after the closing.
So here we are 2 weeks out from the move and I'm finally feeling settled. Many things need to be put away yet, but I'll wait for my Venus in Virgo to kick in before attempting any further organization. She (my natal Venus) took charge of the kitchen cabinets and all but alphabetized the spice rack. I can't wait to see what she does with my make-up and hair products.
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