I’ve moved more often in my life than I would like: 20 times since the age of 20 (several moves in one year at different points). The last move — an entire house of stuff from Texas to California — was less painful than I thought it would be, because Husband’s company paid for people to pack our belongings, load an 18-wheeler, deliver and then unload everything. We ditched (gave away mostly) a lot of stuff before we left Texas , since we were moving to a smaller space. Even so, if I’d had to pack it all to go that distance, I wouldn’t have moved. <\/p>\n
Now we are faced with this task again, once we find a place. No one is packing our stuff. So I need to answer the question of whether I want to pack and move stuff that I’ve accrued since moving here. For example, there is the small purple beaded box a teacher gave each academic coach when I worked for Extreme Learning in 2005; she got it in Mexico, and it was a token of her gratitude. I don’t remember her name, though. And then there’s the 12-inch long by 15-inch tall leather elephant one of the students gave me. I don’t recall his name either. I’ve got a handpainted Russian goblet made of wood that contained honey and was given to me by a coworker to cheer me up after my father-in-law died. I’ve got lots of little bottles and vases I purchased from Goodwill for pennies apiece that I used to put plant snippets in to root. There are two framed prints — both of which I purchased at Target and while pretty, are not pieces of art — hanging in one bathroom. And the question I have is: do I want them? I am not deeply attached to these items in an emotional sense. There are plenty of other knicknacks and pieces of original artwork lining my walls and bookshelves that I will<\/em> keep. On the other hand, items that were gifts were given with good intention. And getting rid of things I bought (i.e., small glass vases) that I might someday want to use again is wasteful.<\/p>\n I’m also faced with a similar decision about some of my book collection. I kept most of my texts from graduate school. However, I no longer work in mental health. Do I really want or need to keep the text on psychopathology, conjoint family therapy, or statistics? My collection of art and knitting resource books is increasing, and there is simply no room to keep it all. Still, parting with these books feels definitive to me, as though I’m closing a door. And no, I don’t want to store them in boxes. We have enough stuff in boxes (childhood memorabilia, for example). I also don’t want to hang on to them and try to sell these or mooch through Bookmooch. The point is I have to move soon and I just want to lighten the burden as much as possible.<\/p>\n I have divested myself of many belongings in the past. When I moved to Texas, I selected 20 boxes worth of belongings to ship to my brother (including clothes), and sold off my furniture. I also sold my book collection (which was extensive) for a pittance to a book dealer. I kept only those books I cherished. I know other people in my life have not moved nearly as much, and they have been able to accumulate stuff over decades. They have some difficulty empathizing with my desire to streamline. Life hasn’t afforded me the luxury of rootedness, but I don’t mind so much. It’s good to clean out occasionally. Now if only my stuff would pack itself!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I’ve moved more often in my life than I would like: 20 times since the age of 20 (several moves in one year at different points). The last move — an entire house of stuff from Texas to California — was less painful than I thought it would be, because Husband’s company paid for people […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1796","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-regional"],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1796","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1796"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1796\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11199,"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1796\/revisions\/11199"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1796"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1796"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1796"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}