I'm actually no longer fearful I won't get everything done. I'm 98% there. What keeps me up nights is wondering whether the moving company we hired is going to show up. They told us they'd be here tomorrow, July 27, to pack up the kitchen and all the Fiesta ware, Russell Wright, fancy china, framed art and pictures, etc.. I've pretty much packed everything else.
Only now they say, "no, we never said that. We'll do the packing and the moving in one day and you're scheduled for the 27th, with the 28th as a backup." They also said they would confirm the exact day and time twenty-fours prior.
Well, we haven't heard from them and are left wondering what happens next. I doubt they will be here tomorrow. That's ok with me really because I can finish the remaining 2%, load the cars and head off to the Hampton Inn where we'll be staying the next six nights. But I sure would like to know they are really coming on the 28th!
But this is boring. Let me talk a bit about the back story I mentioned a week ago.
This move has been hard. I mean, HARD! Everyone knows that moving ain't easy and everyone seems to agree we all have too much stuff (TMS). I strongly urge anyone reading these words to start now, today, decluttering your life. When you let it go, as we did, for twenty-five years and then find yourself with only two months to clean it all up — well, the pressure is enormous. As is the amount of physical labor.
Anxiety really is a sleep killer. Two weeks into this project I was waking up just about every morning at 4 or 5am and having a real hard time getting back to sleep. I'd lie there worrying about everything that had to be done. I'd have thoughts like "I can't do this; I just can't". It was literally debilitating.
I called my doctor and he had a solution: a wonderful drug named Temazepam. It helped me sleep longer but mainly it took the edge off my fears. I was still waking up and worrying about the task, but the worrying had a more intellectual basis to it. I wasn't so emotionally involved anymore. I started saying "I can do this; I WILL do this."
And you know what? I will. It's happening. Tomorrow we leave this house. A week from today we'll be on the road. A week after that we'll be getting to know our temporary digs and starting the hunt for a permanent home. A year from today all this anxiety and back pain and stress will be forgotten.
But trust me, it would have all been easier if I had started this process a year ago, or ten years ago. Why do we keep something for twenty years and then throw it away? It makes no sense. Throw it away today. Now.
Keep to the golden rule: if you haven't touched something in two years, you don't need it. Really. You don't.
I just had to move out of a Yale office again. The first move was much harder--with your help, I downsized by about 1,000 books (maybe more?). Then I kept 20 boxes of stuff (mostly books) in the closet at the office for 2 years, then downsized another 5 boxes before moving them all to Hopper College--where I had both an apartment and an office. When we gave up the apartment, I brought some of it home and put some of it in the office, but then this week I had to give up the office, too. Now I'm down to 10 boxes that Andrew Ehrgood is holding for me until I f̶i̶g̶u̶r̶e̶ ̶o̶u̶t̶ ̶w̶h̶a̶t̶ ̶t̶o̶ ̶d̶o̶ ̶w̶i̶t̶h̶ ̶i̶t̶ have the courage to throw most of it away. So I'm going to take this as an inspiration!
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