Everything Must Go

Friday marked two weeks since the Big Decision.  Only two weeks?  It feels like an age has passed.  In the space of two weeks, Dean and I have designed and redesigned our new homestead at least a dozen times, scribbling on pieces of paper or excitedly moving any rectangular objects to hand (cell phones, decks of cards, a box of Disprin etc) excitedly around on an as-yet imaginary patch of land as we work out the best configuration for What Comes After. I’ve received half a dozen quotes from the purveyors of various modular housing solutions, from prefab units to wooden cabins.  At the moment, we’re leaning heavily towards shipping containers as a simple, effective and value-appeasing solution.  I’ll get to that eventually.

We’ve also:
a) engaged with a real estate firm,
b)made a snag list of everything that needs to be done before we can market the house,
c) had mutual anxiety attacks over the amount of work that entails and
d) put the house on the market anyway.

It seems that the value of the house if sold ‘as is’ is only a little less than we’ll potentially get for it after we spend six months (and another R100k) fixing it up.  As it is, we’re looking at a slightly-better-than-break-even proposition, and that’s actually fine by us.  We just want shot of it.

We’ve also started to downsize.  As in: sell stuff.  Also, donate stuff and bin stuff and foist stuff on unsuspecting friends and neighbours.  And by ‘stuff’, I mean the inordinate amount of crap we have all managed to accumulate over the last decade and a half.  Fifteen years ago, I returned from a 4-year sojourn in England with a backpack, a suitcase and 4 boxes of books.  Since then, Mom, Carly and I have moved around enough to have undergone the process of paring down our belongings a fair few times.  How then, pray tell, have we managed to acquire so much rubbish???  Three years ago, Dean’s ex-wife did him the favour of cleaning him out.  She literally took everything including the lightbulbs.  He had his clothes and some tools in the garage when we moved into this house together, and yet he also seems to have amassed a collection of possessions that could do with dramatic pruning.

Don’t get me started on the kids…

It’s cathartic.  I’ve decided to channel my inner Marie Kondo and systematically work through rooms until I’m confident that all our worldly possessions can fit neatly into our scaled-down life (and bring us joy, naturally). It’s amazing how little you actually need, once you start thinking in terms of ‘will this fit in a caravan or an RV?  Last week I gave away two full black bags of clothes and a huge box of creams, lotions, potions and cosmetics that I never use/don’t like/can’t remember buying. Today, I tackled the stationary and scrapbooking supplies (I’m a pro at kitting myself out for hobbies I never have time for), and managed to fill FOUR PACKING BOXES.  How?  Where did it all come from??? Why do I own eight pairs of scissors?!?!?!

Another appalling moment:  I cleared the DVD shelf because a) we won’t have space for DVD’s in the caravan/RV/container/whatever and b) we stream everything now anyway. About a fifth of our ‘collection’ were STILL IN THEIR WRAPPERS.  I.e: bought, and never unwrapped or watched. Dozens of them.  All that cash down the drain!  I felt ill.  And embarrassed.  CLEARLY, we have too much stuff.  This move is going to be very good for us, methinks.  We need to completely rethink our relationships with our possessions, and we’ve about to be forced to do just that.  It’s a good thing.

All of this has happened against a backdrop of more-demanding-than-usual work commitments and a travel schedule that saw Dean leave for Johannesburg two days after we decided to sell the house, and me leave for Johannesburg to attend a funeral three days after he came back!  Until midway through this week, we hadn’t really been able to sit down and really talk everything out.  I half expected Dean to have a host of misgivings, with the initial euphoria wearing off a little.  However, the exact opposite is true, and it seems that every conversation we’ve had since we decided to ‘opt-out’ of Stepford has strengthened our resolve to do so.  As each day goes by, more details regarding the best way forward seem to reveal themselves, and I take that to mean that we’re on the right path. It feels as though we’ve turned a corner, and that all that is needed now for tremendous growth and change is to allow the momentum to build.

Onwards and upwards.   And away we go.