What do we still need to get rid of before we leave on our adventure?
It seems like we’ve been preparing for months, if not years. As Betty has posted, we have sold our home, and have started the process of decluttering our lives. Who knew it would be such a monumental task!
While not quite in the category of “hoarder”, I have accumulated a lot of stuff that simply won’t fit in the motorhome. From the dinner menus from the maiden voyage of the Corinthia, marking our families’ immigration to Canada in 1956, to university papers and early job pay stubs and concert tickets. All those keepsakes have meaning and memories for me, but not so much for everyone else…
I understand that this is (hopefully) not the final chapter of our lives, but it is another chapter. When my parents died, our eldest son, Andrew, and I rented a U-Haul truck to load up the contents of their home in Ontario & drive it back to Winnipeg. It has taken many years to sort through their meagre prized possessions and agonizingly dispose of many of them. Our 4 grown offspring have been generous in receiving many of the items that we can’t take with us, but I struggle with not wanting to burden them with “stuff” that has limited meaning or use for them.
Like Betty’s mom who encouraged her kids to put their names on desired inheritance items before she passed, we created a colour-coded dot system for our kids: If you want a piece of furniture or china before we sell the house and move into the motor home, put your coloured dot on it now. Otherwise, almost everything else makes its way to the local Salvation Army or other charitable outlet.
Only a few weeks to go now before we leave, and the process still isn’t over. Maybe it’s my Boy Scout experience that taught me to “be prepared”, not wanting to dispose of something in case I might need it in future. The day after I send something to recycling is the day I need it: That is my fear.
But like many fears, I just have to get over it. Because as Bet says: “You can’t take it with you!” And I hope she’s talking about our motorhome trip…