The end – and the beginning – is near

Tonight we are sitting in the almost vacant guest room of our house. Actually, it isn’t our house. We closed on the sale of our house 3 days ago. The new owners graciously let us stay for a few days to finish moving out and making the necessary arrangements for our new life.

The online sale of our possessions went well. A company called Caring Transitions handled all that, and also handled the moving of all the house contents out to the buyers. Last Thursday was a hectic day. We left to stay out of the way. The crew came in and dispersed most of our possessions. We came back to find a few things yet to be delivered, and miscellaneous other stuff still to go through and determine what to give away, and what to trash.

While we were out of the house Thursday, we took our 3 kitties to the vet to get the final paperwork submitted for transport of the pets. The amount and complexity of the paperwork involved is staggering. We have a great vet, and if all the stars (and forms) align, we’ll have the permits needed to leave on a plane with our kitties next week.

After the hectic dispersion of much of our possessions on Thursday, the moving company came to pack up what we thought was a relatively small amount of items to be stored here in the US, or an even smaller amount to be shipped to London.

What an ordeal.

The movers were a bit late and arrived about noon. We thought we had clearly marked things — storage, or shipment, or neither. Turns out it may not have been as clear as we thought. The movers worked hard, diligently packing and boxing things. Some things got packed that we didn’t intend. Time will tell whether we get the right things in London, and the others stay in storage in the US. All in all, the packing took nearly 10 hours.

While the movers were busy packing, we were busy going through boxes in the basement that weren’t going to be stored or shipped. These are the dreaded items that you pack away and want to keep for posterity forever. Except now, we couldn’t keep them forever. So we spent hours going through them.

Boxes of pictures. Pictures that all have special memories. Pictures that we have no room for and have to tearfully let go. Kids treasures…drawings from grade school, bowls made in art class, little things that meant so much and still do…but things we can no longer keep. Things from my office at work…awards, paperwork, mostly personal items that meant something to me professionally. A few survived, most have to be trashed or donated.

Our kids took a few things today they wanted. Mostly little things, with our piano being a large exception and now safely installed in our daughter’s house. Still some things to go to them tomorrow.

Then…the crew comes back in to take items to Goodwill for donation, or trash.

Our cars are the next big things to go. One car gets sold to Carvana tomorrow, the second on Tuesday. Again, just cars…with memories firmly attached. We bought our Subaru Outback in 2003, searching across the country for a rare 6-speed manual transmission. We stored it the 4-1/2 years we were in Japan. Always loved that car. And the Legacy was the car I bought when we came back from Japan during the peak of the pandemic. I didn’t put many miles on it, but it was a great car. And our last cars, at least for a few years.

All in all, the past week has been probably the most stressful we’ve ever had. We keep telling ourselves that this is the right thing to do, and things will be better. I still believe that. But there are still some anxious and difficult days ahead, highlighted by the logistics of getting ourselves, loaded down with more luggage than I’d like to haul around, and our three kitties, across half the world and into our flat in London.

I never want to wish for time to go by faster – it is already going much too fast. But I can’t help looking forward to a time I hope isn’t too far away when we’ve closed the door on this part of our lives, and have started the next phase.

We’re looking forward to our new life. But it is very hard right now to see past all the anxiety of closing out the life that we’ve built over more than 40 years.