Moving can be compared to a house fire. I know moving is like a fire when I look for something I knew we once had only to remember or be reminded that we sold it, gave it away, trashed it, or unintentionally left it behind. Moving is like a fire when months later I remember a box that might still be in an attic of our last home or was that the one before that one? Moving is like a fire when an irreplaceable item is crushed or bent in transit and our furniture earns a new scratch, chip, or tear.
Moving from a bigger house to a smaller house —downsizing— is often taught as if it were a 100 level introductory course. The advice is widely available and varies only in the terms preferred by one sage to the next guru. Unfortunately, downsizing is graded as if it were a 400 level course. Once you complete this course there is no going back, you cannot retake it for a better grade. Take too much with you and you end up with boxes that have not been opened in decades adding to the cost of moving and consuming storage space in your new home or perhaps a rented storage facility. Or perhaps that well-loved and well-made hutch will not fit the next home. Take too little and you risk replacing items or mourning the loss of a treasured memento.
Our last two moves involved moving to smaller homes. Moving to a furnished travel trailer from our current home requires us to consider each and every item. Will we need this on our travels in the next few months? Should it go to storage until next season? If/when we choose to have another stick-and-bricks home, will we want to bring it out of storage? Will our children or siblings want to have this?
Each item has a functional value and an emotional value. Functional value can be easily assessed through an internet search for similar items. The emotional value will trigger trips down memory lane. Take my camera for example. My Nikon-made camera outlasted Kodachrome and Plus-X film. While the lenses will fit some modern digital cameras optically, they will not connect to modern light meters. So functionally even the lenses are of little value. Emotionally, every dent and scratch recalls adventures I had with this camera. For many years I carried this camera with me everywhere I went. My friends in High School teased that if I were to leave it home, it would be as if I came to school half-dressed. But I have not used it for many years. Many photographs on our walls were taken with that camera and those lenses. It has survived at least two moves after it ceased to be useful as a camera. I have two other, much older cameras that are even more heavily emotionally loaded. Those cameras have earned space on a display shelf or at least in storage until we end our travels.
Advice for Downsizing
Each time I move I learn a little about downsizing. Here are a few current nuggets.
Scan or Photograph
Photographs fade over time, especially color photographs. Scanning them can give them renewed life by digitally restoring lost colors. I have scanned old family photographs and found the scanned images cleaner and clearer than the paper version.
Digitized images share readily with family members who have moved to distant places and they carry effortlessly; plus that box of photographs will likely fit on a memory stick.
On the other hand, paper copies outlast any digital media. Can you read an 8″ floppy from the 1980s? I have printed family photographs from the 1880s. A few of these relics will also end up in our storage unit.
Future Implications
Look at each and every item and ask: Will this help carry me into the future that I want to pursue? Or does it tell something special about my history or about my ancestors?
For those things that fail that simple test, honor the memories they evoke. Perhaps take a photograph to trigger those memories in the future. Then offer that item to someone else. If it has good functional value, sell it. Facebook has proved useful for finding buyers during our current downsizing. Otherwise, give it away. Or if it has very little functional value, throw it away.
Your children probably do not want your discards. Our children have their own futures to navigate thus their needs differ from what we needed when we were their ages. We have made general offers and offers of particular items while honoring their options to decline our hand-me-downs.
The Assessment
Ultimately downsizing, even shedding a few items while moving is a 400 level class because the evaluation will occur years later. Whatever happened to …? Didn’t we leave that in …? Why did we keep …?