A year ago at this time we were reviewing and accepting an offer on our home of 25 years. A home that we dreamt about for five years, designed, and built in 1993. It was time to downsize. It was also the time that we made the decision to move from Wisconsin to Rhode Island to be closer to our children. 

With the move no longer at some point in the distance, but with a definite date of 15 March 2019, on January 27th Gary and our daughter Kate left for Rhode Island to start the search for a home. I stayed in Wisconsin and started the long goodbye of sorting and packing for a home that would most likely be 1/2 the size of our current one. 

They left me at the coldest point of the month. I have a screen shot of my weather app for January 30th at 6:33 a.m. At that time of the day, it was -24 degrees, feeling like -59. The high that day was expected to be -9, the low -22. I kept packing, my puppy at my side. 

I packed for almost two months, seven days a week, from morning to evening. Kate stopped counting after ten trips to St. Vincent De Paul, Goodwill and the ReStore. While I had been fairly diligent about keeping on top of weeding out things we no longer needed over the years, there were many places in our home for small things to hide. Too many places. Too much stuff.

After we closed on our new home in Rhode Island, Gary and I headed back to Wisconsin to finish up some loose ends. Finishing a kitchen remodel project for him, and for me, the planning committee for the Wisconsin State Genealogical Societies Gene-A-Rama. Amy Johnson Crow was our main speaker, and I was also slated to speak. Then back to Appleton to start working through things at my mother’s home as she was going to join us in Rhode Island. While her home was smaller than ours had been, she had lived there for 39 years, and she had a basement full of memories. 

Fast forward to a couple of months ago which found me sobbing in my basement, surrounded by boxes of “stuff” that I had brought with me. Looking for “stuff” that I seemed to have gotten rid of. 

Ironically I was also catching up on Amy Johnson Crow’s podcast dated 17 Oct 2019: “3 Unexpected Things I Learned in Downsizing.” https://www.amyjohnsoncrow.com/3-unexpected-things-i-learned-in-downsizing/.  In the podcast, and on the transcript she states: “It was mentally exhausting. Decision fatigue is a real thing. There comes a point where you simply cannot make any more coherent decisions. For my mom, my sisters, and I, that point usually came around the two-hour mark.” 

I call this two-hour mark the “F#(*U@K it” mark. It was the point for me where I could no longer care if an item gave me “joy” ala Marie Kondo, I could only think that I could not fathom adding it to a box that I would have to then unpack miles from where I was at that moment. It was the point where I thought, “I don’t need this, I won’t miss this. YEAH! I don’t have to pack it.” Let’s just say that I made lots of mistakes. I DO miss some of the things I donated. I just did not have the luxury of time to take a break, and come back to the problem. You may ask why I did not start packing sooner. Well, it is hard to sell a home full of boxes. And I wanted my home to be viewed in its best light. 

The reality is that I got rid of a lot of things I now regret, and I brought with me a lot of things I will now be donating. 

Time is the enemy here. Once a house is sold the clock starts ticking. Every second brings you nearer to that moment when you will shut the door for the last time. While you may have gotten rid of too many physical things, you will always have the memories of time spent with family and friends in the house that you are leaving. You need to look forward to the opportunity of making new memories, and let’s face it, the fun of adding a few new tchotchkes purchased specifically for your new home.