Friday, June 20, 2014

The Art of Downsizing



Matt is a decision-making wizard, but for me, it’s a much harder process. When faced with choices, I hesitate and second-guess and usually over-analyze. You can imagine, then, what it was like at the Vial residence as we packed up our 2 bedroom - 1 bath house and prepared to move into a 16x20 cabin in the woods. Matt approached the task with a zealous “Let’s purge!!” attitude which clashed a bit with my nostalgic and sentimental frame of mind. On top of having to make the decision of what to keep, we also had to figure out if the item was coming with us to Alaska or if it would be staying in our small storage unit in Lake Tahoe. Should I take my high heels to Alaska? Do they even wear heels there? And what about that gravy boat. Shouldn’t it be part of my kitchen collection? Needless to say, it was a slow, pain-staking process that left us with a very large pile of Alaska-bound boxes.
Poor Matt, he had the tough job of trying to fit everything into a 7x14 enclosed trailer, including all his tools and other gadgets that make him the MacGyver that he is. (You remember the guy...)
Matt kept saying to me,” Are you sure we have to keep this?”, “Space is limited”, “Alaska has stores, you know.” It all reminded me of the movie Spaceballs when the guy says, “Take only what you need to survive.” Hey, I was going to Alaska and survival was of the upmost concern.
And so the day finally came when the very last tidbit was literally stuffed into any open crevasse that could be found. It was a glorious day for us to be done with the packing and loading phase, but Matt now faced another daunting challenge: Driving 3000 miles with a very full and very red-neck looking vessel. Watch out Alaska, the Clampetts are on their way!


Matt spent six days driving North, all the while cursing his heavy load. Although he did encounter some problems, his MacGyver skills saved the day and he arrived safely in our new state of residence.  Once the girls and I arrived, the Clampett-mobile made the long journey out to McCarthy and oh what I sight we were! “They really are crazy!” seemed to be the general consensus, but crazy seems to fit in well with McCarthy so we knew we’d be ok. 

Slowly but surely we began the arduous task of getting all our stuff to fit into our lovely lil’ cabin. Matt’s job was to organize his tool shed and mine was to make sure our new home didn’t look like we were hoarders. It’s amazing what I thought I needed to bring with me and what could have stayed behind (sshh don’t tell Matt!). There’s comfort in familiarity and I guess I just needed those extra boxes of stuff to get me through the transition. Now I’m living a much simpler life and can see that, in the end, the stuff we think we need (and therefore travels with us 3000 miles) is oftentimes just a space filler. It's liberating to let go and move forward with less spaces to fill. So long gravy boat! 

As you ponder those space-fillers, here's another take on "stuff." Enjoy!