A LIFE IN BOXES

I have a deep, dark secret that I’m going to confess: I’m not a minimalist. There I said it. What a weight lifted. 

In this age of popular minimalism (thanks Marie Kondo), I am a maximal-ist. I’m not sure if that is actually thing or if that just a fancy word for packrat. Like Cinderella, I have a penchant for shoes. I have more cake pans than Julia Child and Anthony Bourdain... combined. And with all my yet-to-be-read books, resulting from my incurable book-buying addiction, I could build a post-apocalyptic shelter. (I also own a hacksaw for this post-apocalyptic world... Zombies, I’m ready for you.)

In the five-ish years, I’ve lived in this apartment, I’ve become soooo skilled at storage that my closets are only suitable for Olympic-level Jenga champions. In fact, I’ve prided myself on my nifty IKEA-hacks to fit more stuff in my one-bedroom apartment. Until now....

Listen carefully. Do you hear it? That moaning is me screaming into my pillow WHY DO I OWN ALL OF THESE THINGS????? The lament of every mover, everywhere.
 
Moving tip #23: Use packing boxes to make super fun forts. 
​The irony of moving is, I’m great at packing. High score in suitcase Tetris. Got it. Roll and stuff method for hiking backpacks. Nailed it. But like the rest of the world, I hate moving. I love packing and taping boxes, said no person ever.
 
You never realize how much other cool stuff there is to do until you have to pack for a move... like anything else. 

Have you ever noticed how glamorous and effortless moving looks in the movies? The torture of packing is glossed over and magically the boxes are labeled, stacked into the back of a van without the blood, sweat and (unwilling) friends bribed with beer. Next scene: unpacked, perfectly organized home. When they make my memoire into a movie, I will insist on painstaking detail of the moving process... I swear it will be a box office smash. 

Moving tip # 35: Get a fairy godmother to help with packing.
Thank goodness for those special friends who can pack a bag better than Mary Poppins. (They are also kinder than Mister Rogers for volunteer for packing duty and braver than Joan of Arc since moving is an all out battle). Their true brilliance is that they don’t wait for you to ask for help because many of us don’t even know how to ask for help moving... especially if you’re over thirty and get sweaty palms just imagining asking your friends to help you move... again. They just show up at your door, sleeves rolled up, armed with a packing tape holster and wine and chocolate chunk Haagen Daaz  to stuff into your depressed face.
 
Quite truthfully, my magical friends and family forced me into my own packing plans. Without them, I would be sitting among the pyramids of boxes, staring dejectedly at the endless piles of stuff that keep seeping out of the nooks and crannies. Seriously, why do I own curlers? When is the last time I used the badminton net?

Moving tip #48: When you get tired of packing, convince yourself that you don’t like the rest of your stuff.
Every move involves sifting through things we’d forgotten we even had. Moving confronts you with all this weird emotional stuff. It’s easy to feel overwhelmed. It’s not the big things your beastly friends haul away that induce panic; it’s the small stuff. Memories that we take from place to place, the breadcrumbs of our life in case we get lost like Hansel and Gretel.
 
Since I can only keep the essentials as negotiated in the contract term for my free storage (thanks Mom and Dad), I created a helpful formula to get rid of my crap:
Cost to re-purchase when I get back + Cost of therapy for separation anxiety caused by tossing said item –  Storage costs based on size of item and square footage of storage locker > 0, then you can keep it.
 
But truthfully, the only thing that I can throw away happily is the guilt of unsuccessful minimalism (take that cute design shops worldwide)!