On the Verge of a Purge – 8 Tips for Downsizing

I have a confession to make. I have 32 pairs of shoes. Correction: I had 32 pairs of shoes. They stood like loyal soldiers on the closet floors and hung in those handy shoe storage thingies all over our house. They made my happy. More than they should have. But I gave them up. Well, not all of them but more than half. Why? Because I knew there was only so much room in the shipping container that would haul all our stuff across the Atlantic. And if I was insisting that my husband Peter get rid of half of his things (which I adamantly was), I knew I had to toe the line. And so many of my beloved footwear had to pay the ultimate price. In my entire purging saga, this was the hardest choice I had to make.

Purging is a must if you are moving house across the country, never mind the world. Yet for many people it’s an incredibly difficult task. Deciding which much-loved personal items cuts the mustard and which ones don’t can lead to anxiety attacks and more than a few arguments. I had been living in the house Peter bought many moons ago for eight years at the time. When I moved in, I brought a few pieces of furniture and half a dozen boxes along with me. That was it. But Peter had been collecting every coffee cup handed out at a press junket and every logo-covered t-shirt for 20 years. He was a true collector. Of anything and everything. Case in point, by the time we moved out there was no less than 43 single wooden skis (few matches) in our garage, every screw, nail and tool, rusted, broken or not, ever used in or around the house. Heck, there was even a water pump from his first car, a Lada that had been out of his life for three decades at this point. Didn’t matter. It all mattered to him. And he was incredibly resistant to letting go of any of it.

One step forward, two steps back

So we started small. Four months before the boat was set to sail, we put three huge bins in the basement and marked them. One for ‘garbage’, one for ‘charity’ and the last for ‘keep’. Then I set Peter free down there, where he spent up to eight hours a day for many a weekend. I dared not look. When I finally ventured to the bowels of the building, what do you think I found? There were a handful of items in the ‘garbage’. To be fair, the ‘charity’ bin was half full. But the ‘keep’ bin was overflowing. In fact, a second ‘keep’ bin had mysteriously appeared. I couldn’t believe it. All that time I thought he was making headway and in fact, nothing really had been done. I took a quick look in the ‘keep’ box and there on top was a rusted showerhead. I kid you not. What for the love of God would we need a dirty showerhead for in our newly renovated house in Italy? (See above for how purging can create arguments. A doozy happened over this incident.) But it spoke to Peter’s anxiety at having to give away what essentially was a part of his past, a part of him. He was about to venture into the unknown – a completely new and different life and he wanted some of the familiar to make the journey with him. This I understood. It just couldn’t be all of the familiar that tagged along with us.

So I asked him to visualize where he saw each item going in the new house, to close his eyes and see it there. Did it fit? Was there room for it in our new life? Bless him, he tried. And the harder he tried, the easier it got. Incredibly, bit- by -bit, the ‘charity’ bin filled up until it too was overflowing. This slow purge happened over the course of months, which helped ease the blow. During that time, we discovered a few helpful tips.

8 tips for downsizing

1. VISUALIZE WHERE EACH ITEM GOES. If it doesn’t fit in your new life and in the rooms of your new home, give it away.
2. VISUALIZE YOUR NEW LIFE. What does the new you look and feel like in your new life? Have you always wanted to change up the office look for a more bohemian wardrobe? Have you secretly dreamed of tossing your stilettos in favor or Birkenstocks? Now is your chance. Have courage. Out with the old and in with the new. But save the new until you’re arrived at your destination. The idea is to purge first, remember. I have a friend who religiously follows this one ‘new clothes’ rule: For every new item she buys, one must be given away. This works here. Do the ‘giving away’ as part of your purge and look forward to adding the ‘new’ later.
3. IF YOU HAVEN’T WORN IT IN A YEAR, TOSS IT. This was hard for me. I kept telling myself that those dresses I love were going to magically expand and fit me again. Remarkably, they never did.
4. IF IT’S FADED, DULL, RIPPED OR TORN, toss it. This goes for everything – clothing, linens, towels etc.
5. CHOOSE ONLY THE BEST PHOTOS, repeat angles of the same event and photo evidence of a double chin forming must go. Besides, how many photos do you really need of your last vacation or birthday? I say one or two will do.
6. GET SELECTIVE WITH BIRTHDAY CARDS. Get a photo album and select only one or two of your favorites cards from each friend and family member. Put them in the photo album and you have easy access to only the best of your favorite cards. This won’t work for spouses or significant others. The rules of romance dictate you must keep ALL of their cards and love notes. Which leads to the next tip…
7. MAKE A ‘SENTIMENTAL THINGS’ BOX. Fill it with all the special notes, trinkets and memorabilia that make you laugh; make you smile. These are the things in your life that matter. Keep them. Treasure them.
8. GET TOUGH. Do you really need 16 dinner plates? Two-dozen glasses? That ugly vase Aunt Betty gave you sitting on your wagon wheel coffee table filled with plastic flowers? Heck, do you need the wagon wheel coffee table? I argue ‘no’, you don’t.

You’re starting a new life in a new home, in a new land. Let your old life say a dignified goodbye and embrace the new. It’s exciting. It’s liberating. And it can be full of surprises.

While finally unpacking everything in Italy after a nightmare shipping process (which I will share in another post), I unzip a duffle bag and lo and behold there are about 25 baseball hats stuffed inside. Somehow Peter snuck this baseball bounty past me. Has he ever worn any of them? Well, maybe one or two. The rest sit in the attic of our new Italian home.

But I had a surprise for him too. When the last of it was being loaded onto the shipping container sitting in our driveway, the movers asked me if there was anything else. I looked at the old Yamaha motorbike Peter’s Dad had bought him when he was a young teenager sitting dusty in the back of the garage and thought, ‘why not?’. I asked them to squeeze it between the mattresses before Peter could see it. This bike had special meaning for my husband. It was the last gift given from a father to a son before his tragic and untimely death at only 51 years old.

The look on Peter’s face when he saw the bike being rolled off the container onto the cobblestone street of our medieval town said it all – sometimes the practicality of purging must take a backseat to the sweetness of sentimentality.

A presto

Anna