UnMoving Day - Part 1

I never knew that there was so much upkeep you should do for a house even though this is the fourth home that I’ve owned. Actually that is the problem (or perhaps the solution). You see, throughout most of my life I was a serial homeowner. From the early 80’s until 2001, as I moved around the country due to my career, I rarely lived in the same place for more than 3 years. This has now changed and I’ve lived in my current home for a remarkable seven years. As moving is not in the cards for the time being, I am discovering that staying in the same place requires almost as much work as if I was moving!

 What has brought about this discovery? I started to get the hint when I could no longer open the closet in the spare bedroom without empty boxes tumbling out around me. In the past, when I moved every few years, I would have to empty my closets, throw away the junk and use all the saved boxes to pack up the rest of the stuff. Now I’ve discovered that if you stay in the same place for 7 years these closets get filled up! So before the holidays I finally had to bite the bullet and clean out that closet. (I should admit that a friend actually did all the lifting and heavy work while I directed him.) It was almost painful to throw out all the empty boxes that I had saved for the next move for that meant that my wanderlust days have been curtailed for now.

I hadn’t realized just how attached I am to empty boxes until I started this cleaning frenzy before the holidays. After cleaning the closet I realized that I had to do something about my garage.  Apparently you need to periodically clean that out, too. Who knew? I had to hire help to clean this and even though that was a month ago I am still in awe every time I go to my car for my garage is now in move in condition. Plus in addition to sweeping out the ankle deep dirt and leaves collected in the corners of the garage, my helpers also threw out the large empty boxes I had saved since my last move. These boxes had become soggy and torn and useless years ago but again I just couldn’t bear to throw them out in case I had another sudden urge to move. But out they went to the dumpster. After cleaning these two rooms I thought I was finally free from my emotional attachment to empty boxes.

Not quite. I have a third very small spare bedroom which I rarely go into. But during the holidays, as we wandered into this room looking for spare hangers Mom commented on a very large object in the corner of the room. As it’s been there since moving day I no longer really see it anymore. But the object in question is one of those huge carton wardrobe boxes used in moving. How embarrassing! My excuse was that those boxes are hard to come by when you’re moving and equally hard to break down and toss out when you’re moved in and so I simply kept it in the corner of the room for the past seven years. Oops.