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)!
1 Comment
13/1/2020 04:50:12 am
There are times wherein we don’t need to be technical. Sometimes, we need to think of ways on how we can encourage ourselves to keep on functioning though we are physically and mentally tired. That’s called strategy! Sure thing, packing is indeed stressful way to get rid of stress. But if you are a space owner and you want to get everything nice and organize, smart way of packing and organizing your stuff is really important. Some people think it is easy, but it can be challenging if you don’t know how!
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Follow AlongNice to meet you...I'm Andi (hence the blog name). I'm a travel aficionado, passionate eater, tireless explorer of internet rabbit-holes, and amateur thinker. Join me as I give it all up (ok, that's a bit of an exaggeration) and go around the world on a mid-career "soul sabbatical" & year-of-learning to figure out what to be NEXT when I grow up. Won’t you grab a cup of chai and stay a while?
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May 2018
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