Lighten our load for the journey ahead
I had a dream once, and that dream was to live on a sailboat. But then we had a kid. And then another, and another, and another. And I love them, of course. I wouldn’t trade them for sloop nor schooner. But they do come with an incomprehensible amount of accessories, don’t they? Even though we’re past the stage of diaper bags with brightly colored trinkets to distract them and snacks to content them, they insist on keeping things like shoes and socks, games, soccer balls and more shoes. Nowhere on that list is a jib or a mainsail or even a rudder. We couldn’t fit the Alley camp’s accoutrements into a single sailboat any more than we’re going to be able to fit it all into an inordinate number of boxes.
That’s right, it’s moving time again, and my nomadic crew is pulling up anchor and sailing among ZIP codes; trading in 38120 for 38104. We’re going back to Midtown and are currently tacking among a maze of boxes.
The house we’re moving into is almost exactly the same size as the one we’re moving from, so in theory everything we own will fit. But as we fill box after box, I keep thinking to myself, “Why do we own everything we own?”
We still have toys, which is fine because we still have children. These children, though, aren’t really toy age. They’re phone age and computer age and hand-held tablet age. They’re from the cyber age, and a Mr. Potato Head doesn’t belong to this era.
Okay, they don’t own a Mr. Potato Head any longer, but there are still toys in our house with pieces that come off and become scattered to find themselves underneath the sofa or on top of a table or in my foot.
I have other dreams. Fewer boxes is a recurring one, so the great purge has begun, and it is glorious. My own private rule is that if I hold something in my hand for more than five seconds trying to determine if it should go, then it should go. Goodwill will see us coming from a nautical mile away this week because we have plenty that is still good — clothing, shoes, toys, some furniture — and will hopefully find a good home with someone else.
That’s the key: We have plenty. We hear every day about those who struggle