When your House Is Not Your Home

This weekend we did another U-Haul van trip to our house in North Carolina.  Had we been more efficient in getting things packed up for the moving van weekend we could have probably skipped this extra U-Haul rental.  But we still needed to go to North Carolina so that the estate sale team could set up for next weekend’s big downsizing sale.

We knew we should expect a transformed environment when we returned to Nashville on Sunday night, but I wasn’t prepared for the extent of that transformation.  I had heard that some things that were left over from other sales would get mixed in to our sale items.  Just as our unsold items will continue to be offered at subsequent sales until they find buyers.  But it was completely disorienting to come home to find most of our furniture moved and intermixed with other pieces of furniture.  I found myself walking around and becoming confused.  I’d see something and think “I don’t remember that” and then have to sort through a memory game – is that ours and I don’t remember it?  Or is that something that isn’t ours?  And sometimes a thing that wasn’t ours would actually look familiar and make me question all over again.

I should say that the estate sale team, Estate Sales by Sheila, did a fantastic job.  Some of the set-up was so attractive it made me want to buy my own stuff.  And it was amazing to see that as they found instruction manuals scattered about they managed to get them reunited with the small appliances they went with.  But just the breadth of what they prepared for sale was stunning.  A windchime from the backyard – moved and priced.  A huge partly broken clay art vase that was a decoration in the backyard moved to the front and available for sale.  Every cooking utensil, plate, glass, and cup out on a table with a price tag.  We had to reclaim some just to eat a simple dinner.  Of course being careful to take ones that were parts of sets and didn’t actually have a price tag on them.

Suddenly the three days until we decamp to our rental seems like a very long time..

Downsizing - What to Keep?

I haven’t read the book “The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing” by Marie Kondo but I have heard about from my daughter and son-in-law and feel like I am getting to try out her “does this thing spark joy” approach on a house-wide scale.  As my husband and I prepare for our retirement move to North Carolina, we must downsize.  Our house in NC is 1,000 square feet smaller than our Nashville house and, having been used as a weekend/vacation home for six years, it is already functionally outfitted and furnished.

So what gets kept and what gets left….  I think I like the idea of basing that decision on whether something gives you joy.  And accepting the fact that some random things may give you joy for absolutely no discernable reason and likewise, that something that seems as if it should be treasured may not really elicit much emotion. 

So what random thing gives me joy?  How about a bakelite vacuum tube radio.  I’m pretty sure my father found it in someone’s trash in the late 50’s. He brought it home, did something to it (a new electric cord?  A new tube?) and it worked.  It sat on a repurposed metal stand in his home for years, gathering dust.  I don’t know if he ever even listened to it.  Somehow, when he downsized it ended up with me.  And the coolest thing about it is the cardboard station guide behind the station indicator – it identifies the stations by call letters, the call letters of Los Angeles radio stations – KHJ, KFWB.  Now why should that give me joy?  Absolutely no idea.  But it makes me happy to look at it, so I’ll keep it.

And what item that should be treasured is not making the cut?  How about the dress I made for my daughter’s first communion.  That was absolutely a labor of love - fully lined, gathered skirt, flat lace embellishments, lace trim at the neck and sleeves.  A beautiful dress that she looked beautiful wearing for a key initiation sacrament.  I’ve kept that dress for over 30 years.  But does the dress itself, hanging in a closet, give me joy?  No.   The memory of her wearing it gives me joy, but I have pictures to memorialize that.  So the dress is not being kept. 

The Big Shift

It was thinking about what I envisioned as the “the big shift”, going to work everyday as always and then abruptly hitting that first day of retirement, that made the name of this blog – Wake Up Retired – seem appropriate.  And maybe it will still feel that way when I get there in 52 days.  But having been caught up in a whirlwind of preparation activity over the last 4 weeks it feels more like a phased transition.

I’m pretty sure we are doing this retirement thing all wrong.  Logic and reason would say that you get to the first day of retirement, maybe go on a celebratory trip, chill out a bit, and then put your house up for sale.  The house sells, you devote all of your time to packing and moving and then you move.  But not wanting a house payment for any longer than necessary, we put the house up for sale 4 months before retirement and then had it sell in 2 ½ weeks.  So here we are working along and then spending every free moment packing and moving and coordinating.  First there was the U-Haul cargo van weekend

That was exhausting.  Chuck driving the van, me driving the Murano with the dogs.  It’s a 5 ½ hour trip from Nashville, TN to our house in Black Mountain, NC, assuming no traffic issues.  We arrived and started unloading the van.  Then the next day it was re-loading the van with stuff that had been furnishing the mountain house that we weren’t going to need or want anymore.  Drive back to Nashville and unload again.  We’re getting too old for this stuff!

Then there was the professional moving company weekend.

That one was mainly Chuck’s heroic effort.  I had year-end financial close to deal with at work so there was no way I was helping.  Plus, the moving company was taking not just all sorts of furniture and boxes to the mountains, but also Chuck’s Can-Am Spyder.  Most of one day was for the movers to load the truck and most of another to unload it at two different locations (the house and the storage unit where the Can-Am is going live).  Them Chuck had one day to do some sorting and rough placing and one to drive back.  And when I wasn’t at work over that weekend, I was busy packing more boxes.

So this weekend will be another U-Haul van adventure and the weekend after that the move to temporary quarters.  Shifting, shifting, shifting – right now I’m waiting for the downshift.