Disassembling a Life
In some ways, moving — as in, physically moving your life from one location to another — feels like disassembling a life.
Maybe that's more evident when the move involves going from a larger space to smaller space. In this case, we are two people closing in on "retirement age" and we are downsizing.
The purpose of doing so is two-fold: It is too much work to keep up with and maintain this large house we have called home for a decade and a half, but we also can't afford to live here, anymore... plain and simple.
Like many people — in this country and around the world — our largely stagnant incomes are on a collision course with living expenses that are rising 15-20% a year, no matter what the gubmint might insist "the inflation rate" might be.
And so, we are disassembling our lives.
Maybe it's easier for people who — by nature or by nurture — really aren't into "stuff." I guess my leanings towards stuff is the result of a childhood in which people and experiences were invariably taken from me, followed by an adulthood in which I found myself repeatedly and frequently left disappointed by the people around me... but at least the stuff was constant and always there, reliable; solid. Except when I ended up having to sell it to fund someone else's poor choices.
In a box from my closet that I was sorting, I found all my toy zoo and farm animals from when I was a little kid... because they are "vintage" and in pretty good condition, they will end up on eBay and subsequently in the hands of some collector... which is preferable to them ending up in the "mom and dad are dead" sale our kids will invariably face, someday.
"Bag of toy animals, $0.50"
Somehow it feels like I am honoring their memory by not allowing that to happen. Because that would happen, as part of the inevitable process that what matters to the current generation invariably is not the same thing that mattered to previous generations.
That's something I have repeatedly been reminded of as I tried to sell off my parents' stuff... so many collectible knick-knacks my mother always insisted were "very good" but the fact that they were treasured (and expensive!) in the 1950s doesn't mean that anyone in 2025 gives a damn about them. They have become irrelevant; maybe even relics.
In a sense, I have somewhat been through this process before... back towards the end of my first marriage, when I moved four times in three years, overall going from a 3-bedroom house to a 1-bedroom apartment. Well... and a self-storage unit, where I kept much of my fledgling mail order business.
This feels different though. There's a sort of permanence about it; a knowing that this is the last time I will be doing this.
Tomorrow, the box of farm and zoo animals head up for sale. I will keep a couple of my very favorites as "memory pieces" for my personal sacred space. It's all I need, really...
And then the process will continue, to the next box of stuff I have no particular need to hang onto.
As a wise person once pointed out to me: "Shrouds have no pockets..."
Thanks for stopping by, and have a great remainder of your week!
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Created at 2025.07.10 00:45 PDT
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My parents went through this process some years ago, they didn’t downsize a huge amount but their current house does have a smaller garden and whilst the master bedroom is big the other two are smaller. Dad sold a lot of his old Dinky toy collection online, a bit like yourself and became a bit of son eBay hustler!
It must be hard to move because you can't afford to live there. It's different when you do it because you need a smaller space. My wife and I are also finding this space too big. It was fine when the children were here, but now they have their own lives elsewhere. We also find it difficult to maintain.
Thank you for sharing, dear @denmarkguy . Have a nice day. A big hug from Maracay.