Fortunately, lists are our friends and Jim is one of the best list makers I know. In addition, he takes things one step further and creates excellent spreadsheets outlining all the things we need to do. So we began with just brainstorming everything that came to mind that we felt was an important consideration to create a "master" list of all the tasks we needed to accomplish or things we needed to think about. Then we gradually refined it to categories - storage, communication that made getting through the list more manageable.
As of this writing, we're approximately 3 months away from D Day (departure day) and here's what we've begun doing: Over a period of a couple of weeks (weekends and evenings mostly) we weeded through all the boxes of things we've been carting around with us for years - everything from Christmas decorations to photo albums to old clothes to.....well, you name it - and were fairly brutal about deciding whether or not each item was really something we wanted to hold on to. We plan on getting a fairly small storage unit to store what we are finally left with. Fair warning, here - it takes a fair amount of energy and determination to sort through everything you have and decide if it's something you may want or need down the road. All in all, though, I think we've gotten through it really well!
Now then, all the possessions we couldn't live without went into those sturdy Rubbermaid tubs which we thought would weather well in a storage unit. We then stored the tubs in one corner of the basement and on the other side of the basement we piled EVERYTHING else that would ultimately go into a yard sale or get sold on Craigslist. As far as furniture goes, we decided to just keep our bed and mattress and the Japanese bar that had been in my family since I was a baby (and which I had beautifully refinished a couple of years ago). Otherwise, we're selling the guest bed and two night stands, the dining room table and six chairs as well as our living room sectional, coffee table and buffet. A lot of this is already on Craigslist and we're hopeful they'll sell soon!
One thing we haven't really sorted through yet is the artwork we've accumulated over the years and this will probably be the most difficult to sort through since a lot of it has meaning for us. That's okay, though, since we decided anything we're really attached to we'll just keep, period. After all, the idea's not to torture yourself, right??
This is probably a good place to talk about what a freeing feeling it is to let go of so much stuff. I've found that as we've moved away from being "consumers" and buying stuff just to have more stuff, I really view the world differently. I think you start seeing the importance of the basics - spending quality time with the ones you love, taking care of yourself, and thinking about the impact your behaviors and habits have on the environment. In some ways, it's a little bit like what Neo experiences when he unplugs from The Matrix - you really do start to see the world through a different lens and you discover there is more to life than consume, consume, throw away, throw away. At any rate, that's been our experience as we start out on this new path.
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