Moving...Sorting...Packing...Storing

Tweet

In the last forty years I have packed up and moved my belongings more times tha I care to count. We have moved from a small house to a large house, from a large home to a small home. We have had to put our possessions into storage on more than one occasion when we were temporarily homeless. Thirty plus years ago we packed up my Mother in laws possessions and moved her from a four bedroom house to a small seniors apartment. Then we packed her apartment up and moved her into our home. Later we thinned her possessions again to move her into a long term care facility. Then the final move, packing the remainder up to absorb into our home. A lesson learned from this was to travel a little lighter. The longer we stay in one place, the more we seem to collect. Now we are moving my father into our small home. He has a large bedroom, with a large closet. He is attempting to pare down the things he has collected in the fifty plus years he has lived in the large Victorian house we knew as home. Each day he selects a box to sort. Each night I have a half a box of recycling to dispose of. Once a week I take him 'home' to collect yet more boxes to be sorted. In the last three weeks we have barely scratched the surface. At some point he will realize that he needs to go through all the boxes he is keeping and eliminate 90% just to get it all into his room Do you try to purge your possessions on a regular basis, or do you hope it will just go away on its own?