It's been a few weeks now since Simon and I began the process of selling all our furniture. We're not moving into our new apartment until the end of September, and admittedly, starting the selling process in June probably was a bit rash. But you just never know how long it's going to take to sell your stuff. The market is fickle, it's saturated with giveaways, and odds are good that items that caught my eye might not hold the same appeal for someone else.
I keep telling myself that all these things are just that...things. They can be replaced if need be, although seeing as we're moving from a 1700 square foot home to a 580 square foot apartment, there are very few things that we now own that will actually fit in the new apartment. Being a human being, I enjoy things. I especially enjoy things that have a story. When I owned my first house in Minnesota, I did what most other people do and I went to a furniture store and basically bought every single piece of furniture for my house in one trip. I wandered around the showroom, sat at multiple tables, bounced on multiple beds, laid on multiple couches...until I found the ones that I thought would do. I opened a big line of credit, and a few weeks later, all my furnishings were delivered on the same truck. Super easy, minimal effort, but none of my furnishings were all that terribly interesting.
This time around, I wanted to do things differently. For one, I didn't want to spend a lot of money furnishing our home. A $50 desk makes just as good a computer stand as a $500 desk. An ugly, beat up $10 dresser from the Goodwill could easily be refinished and repainted to look brand new. And not only brand new, but also one-of-a-kind. We drove all over the Flagstaff area picking up odds and ends from various thrift stores, consignment shops, and craigslist sellers. By the time we were done collecting our new-to-us furniture, we had quite the collection of misfits. We took a trip to Home Depot to buy some cheap cans of paint off the Oops table, bought a hand-held sander, and committed ourselves to customizing our furniture. Simon and I spent multiple evenings out in the garage sanding and painting our dressers, end tables, book shelves, and even the top of a dining room table. We went to World Market and purchased a bunch of whimsical knobs. I'm not ashamed to admit that when all was said and done, we had some really cute furnishings. And we did it all very cheaply. And it was fun to be able to look around the house and see the work that Simon and I put into our home. Each little table and desk and dresser represented time that we had spent together, doing something new, making something our own.
And then...a year and a half later, here we are...selling all of it. It's not that I have any specific emotional attachment to these items, but I really did like them, and their absence is palpable. I no longer sit at my cute little brown desk to write my blogs...it went to a new home this afternoon. I'm out in the kitchen at the breakfast bar, taking up valuable counter space that Simon will not approve of (he's very territorial of the counter space). Our kitchen chairs and 3 of our 5 barstools are in the back of the Jeep, waiting to be delivered to their new owner on Tuesday, while our kitchen table sits alone in the dining area, covered with odds and ends that were hurriedly taken off the bookshelves as people came to haul them away. Thank goodness I had the foresight to hold back 2 of the barstools, or we'd have nowhere to sit! I find myself wishing that I could keep some of these things, but know that that's just silly. We've decided that we're going to live small, and living small doesn't include owning enough things to furnish a 3-bedroom house.
They are just things. I have to keep telling myself that when I get sad thinking about my cute little green dresser, or my little blue end table, or my pretty vintage coffee table...all being enjoyed in new homes. Someday I'll have a home again, and I'll furnish it once again with cute little things from here, there, and everywhere. I think the bigger picture is that moving is just hard...the longer you stay, the harder it is to go. You get used to being in one place, and then you have to move to another place, and everything that was once familiar is foreign again. After 8 years of travel nursing, I guess you could say that I moved for a living...this should be old news to someone like me. But each place I live has its charm, and it's always hard to see that charm stripped away when the time has come to move on. I don't like bare walls, or empty rooms, or spaces without purpose. It's alienating and cold and lonely. As we sell our things and embark on downsizing, we're turning our home into a big, blank space. And it doesn't feel right. But this is all part of the process. This too, shall pass, as they say.
I look around the house and there is still so much to do. It's overwhelming at times. It's amazing the amount of stuff you accumulate when you stay in one place for any length of time. We haven't even been here two years and I'm astounded by all we have. Some days I just want to load it all up and haul it off to the thrift store, but I know there's value in some of it and it would irresponsible to just toss it away without at least trying to get something out of my initial efforts. So I toil on a slow pace, the Goodwill box getting more and more full, the ebay auctions added to intermittently, the craigslist postings updated willy nilly. Honestly, it's probably a good thing that we started this process in June, because I just don't know how we would finish it by September.
Bah. I should be doing stuff and not blogging. But I needed the time to quiet my mind. Back to the grindstone, as they say. Who is this "they," anyway? They sure seem to have a lot of vague, generalized statements that conveniently seem to fit just about any situation.
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