I sold the edger today. The lawnmower and blower were long gone, as is pretty much everything else in our house, but getting rid of the edger, well that was a feeling of complete liberation. This is quite a shift. And 'this' is a move from a 2500 square foot house in TX (with accompanying lawn, that required lots of edging with the long sidewalk on our corner lot) to a 693 square foot apartment in VA. Gwyne's gone, she's already in VA, toiling away in the salt mines. She left me here to sell the house, pack what is left and head over to the East Coast. As I told her, leaving me behind to decide what we need and what we don't need was a very dangerous proposition. No one who knows me would ever accuse me of being a sentimental old fool. Old, yes. Sentimental and a fool, particularly when it came to what we should get rid of, oh no. Before she left, we took a tour of the house and marked what we were going to keep and what we were going to sell. I set up Jim Cramer's sell sell sell! soundbite on my iPhone and hit it frequently as we went in each room. The downsizing from 4 bedrooms, 2 baths and a bonus room (that ended up being a storage room for the kid's crap) to a 1 bedroom 1 bath apartment required some serious sell sell selling! And I was just the guy to do it. The link to the soundbite, if you're not familiar with it is, below.
http://www.hark.com/clips/qcwcxwjqxg-sell-sell-sell-button
There are plenty of things that were no brainers - anything required to lawn care, for example. Sell sell sell! There were other things that were harder (for some) to let go of. We kept most of our knickknacks, paddy whacks, geegaws and shiny baubles, but pretty much everything else didn't fit in the I have warm and fuzzy feelings category (sell sell sell!) and I definitely didn't want to keep hauling them around the world. Like this:
http://www.hark.com/clips/qcwcxwjqxg-sell-sell-sell-button
There are plenty of things that were no brainers - anything required to lawn care, for example. Sell sell sell! There were other things that were harder (for some) to let go of. We kept most of our knickknacks, paddy whacks, geegaws and shiny baubles, but pretty much everything else didn't fit in the I have warm and fuzzy feelings category (sell sell sell!) and I definitely didn't want to keep hauling them around the world. Like this:
It's a huge, two piece hand carved mahogany bookshelf from Indonesia that I bought in Saipan. I still remember loading it into the back of my pick up truck with brother Ed and bringing it into our 1 bedroom 1 bath apartment there. It was subsequently moved to the Marshall Islands, where it resided in a trailer, 400 series housing, new housing and 200 series housing, Colorado Springs, San Antonio and Fort Worth. And pretty much every place it was moved, the movers looked at it and said, "I don't think it's going to fit." But somehow, it managed to go through the doors, turn the corners and find a home. I tried to sell it before, but was persuaded not to (sell sell sell!) by one or more of the people in my life with sensitive feelings.
In the process of downshifting, I feel as if I've climbed that mountain and am now getting ready to enjoy the exhilarating downhill ride. No more almost daily visits to Home Depot or Lowes. No maintenance. No lawn. No lawn care, no mowing, no hedge trimming, no aerating, no fertilizing, no weeding and...no more mf edging. No cars. 2 minutes from the Metro. 2 minutes from Trader Joe's in one direction and 2 minutes from a Whole Foods in the other direction.
In addition to the change from suburban to city life, I'm just about to shift gears again too. It's either back to work in some shape or form or a three month bicycle tour of Thailand and Burma for me. And no, that bookshelf won't be slowing me down as I pedal along. That's somebody else's millstone to drag through life now. You are the weakest link...Goodbye!
