UNDERESTIMATING TIME
Underestimating time and how quickly it flies by. We also say that time speeds up as we get older. The halcyon days of never-ending summers as children, ramping up until we are celebrating Christmas when it feels like it should only be June.
There is never enough time when we need to get stuff done, we always seem to be running out the door to get to something – urgently.
Our cars go faster, and more quietly, we have loads of technology and other time-saving devices, we have robot lawnmowers and vacuum cleaners, and yet, particularly when you are still working full time, time seems to be literally flying.
Decision Made, It’s Time to Go
The decision comes to sell our family home of some decades, we want to downsize from bedrooms, a study, and three living rooms on our five acres to something easier to manage.
Don’t be surprised that very few of us want to downsize our homes by very much, maybe knock off a living area and a bedroom but we still want our space.
We need the space to fit in an accumulation of possessions. We are the children whose parents survived the depression and at least two wars, we grew up understanding that rationing was a thing and hanging onto random bits and pieces because they might be useful one day down the track.
In previous moves, we had packed up our belongings and they seemed to easily fit in our new homes because we were upsizing – our homes got bigger with each move. From our initial one-bedroom apartment to three bedrooms, a renovation project, and then our big new home where there were so many cupboards, surely we would never fill them!
Underestimating the STUFF – Downsize and Declutter and Distribute
Underestimating the time it takes to do this. Those never-ending cupboards – well, fill them we did. And now we have to pack them. Sorting, discarding, the time for hanging onto to some of these things has definitely passed. Learning what the Op Shops will take, boxes full of old novels (actually, it’s really hard to get rid of books), and the antiques that our children adamantly do not want.
In the back of our minds is wondering where we will move to. If you already know where you are going then you are winning the battle already. The discussions of whether to stay local or move further afield. Already missing our space and garden. Buying our possibly last home – Ouch!
Procrastination, difficult decisions, Marie Kondoing everything. (Marie Kondo has/had a TV show where she helped people declutter “Does this thing bring you joy?” No. Then out it goes. Mind you, this all changed after she had children).
A house full of boxes, garbage bags full of rags, another bag for the Op Shop, reaching into the back of all those endless cupboards and drawers.
The realisation that ‘being on the market in August’ is looking more like March the next year.
Apparently, there is another stage. A more ruthless stage where you pick something up and without pause, out it goes. We are not there yet but I can see it looming on the horizon.
Keep. Return. Give away. Throw away.
Underestimating the Memories – The hardest things to get rid of so far.
Underestimating the time it takes to go through things, reminiscing all the way.
Books (I love books so this is doubly hard – I don’t want to get rid of them and no one wants them)
Old tech, this can require letting the discards pile up and making one big trip to the Transfer Station
Kids Stuff. Memories of a lifetime, their clothes, their drawings, their walls of photos.
DVDs and CDs. Actually, I am keeping those.
China and mugs (why do we have so many mugs)
Furniture, who want antiques these days (no one as it turns out)
Memories. Our children grew up in this house, there were parties aplenty, good times.
One of the toughest realisations is that if we don’t get rid of what we want to get rid of then we are leaving it for our children to decide. This is not a fair burden for them plus knowing that they will find it much easier to throw away everything. They will barely look at the kinder paintings or their favourite t-shirt, the cards from my grandparents and much-loved family members will mean nothing to them.
Make these decisions now. Seems easy? It’s really not but it has to be done.
You would also think that it would be easy for me, after being in real estate for more than two decades, watching people go through exactly this and blithely telling clients that they need to declutter like it’s an easy thing to do! Underestimating time indeed!
