Crossposted at A Military Wife's Perspective
We successfully sold one of our two vehicles this week. Moving with the military is an obstacle course of a to-do list, but an overseas assignment is especially fraught with too many things to do. We leave in less than one month. We've decided not to ship a car to Argentina so that leaves us with two sales to make in a short amount of time while trying to hold on to one vehicle long enough that we're not out tons of money to a rental company. It's all a balancing act! But the Prius is sold and leaves us putting our Eurovan on Craigslist hoping for a promise and deposit for sale in January.
Selling cars isn't the only thing that keeps me awake at night. I have a long to-do-list that runs through my head, much of it is nonsensical. I plan ads and photos shoots of vehicles, remember the closet under the stairs hasn't been cleaned out, kick myself for forgetting to check my Junk Mail just in case another Craiglister responded and it got shunted into the wrong inbox, debate whether I should take a trip to the store or should we dine on lentils just one more night. Why do I always buy too many lentils?
Do we have enough suitcases?
Will there be a pat down at airport? (I try to put that worry off until the future, but it does creep in)
Will we sell the van before we leave?
Remember to pick up those dental records, the eye doctor's records, and the regular doctor too. Oh, and the orthodontist. Why aren't these things computerized?
Will I know enough Spanish to buy my family food when we get there?
At least I'm not worried about where we will live. We've found an apartment and all the paperwork seems to be in order. Instead, I worry about when we need to move in and when will our furniture arrive? I've been told we must have a maid and I don't want one so I worry about who I might offend and should I do anything about it? I'm worried about eating dinner after 9pm at night and not eating breakfast at all.
While all this worrying is going on, I'm separating my life into two piles. One pile comes with me to Argentina. The other pile will be stored in California.
My fabric and sewing machine - stored. My quilting life has already been put to the wayside these last few years, so what's another 15 months?
Dying equipment for marbling and tie-dying - stored. My hand-dyed scarves call to me but without appropriate studio space (or at least a garage with running water), that part of my life gets put on hold as well.
Books - oh, what books to store? Some are easy - the gardening books won't be needed in an apartment. We also won't need any animal or bird identification books for the North America. I could store the entire library of American and British Literature but I'm not sure I can relegate Steinbeck and O'Connor and Joyce to the storage facility. It really isn't a nice thing to do. My kids have long outgrown the picture book library we've collected but maybe I'll meet some young Argentine kids who will appreciate an American story or two, so those don't get stored either.
Electronic appliances - stored, every single one. Electricity is different in Argentina. Though we can run things with a transformer, it costs more money and their bulk gets in the way on the kitchen counter. So the food processor, the blender, the juicer, the electric wok, the food dehydrator, the waffle irons, the vacuum cleaner, the steam cleaner, are all banished!
As I write this list, I start feeling less sorry for myself and begin to wonder why we have so many damn things. We Americans are down right greedy. There's a book I've refrained from reading because I am ashamed of all of our material possessions but I'm going to mention it anyway. It's called Material World: A Global Family Portrait. Photos from this book show average families from thirty different countries standing in front of their homes with ALL of their belongings.
My husband and I see our belongings this way every time we move, spread out across the lawn waiting to be loaded on a big moving van. I know we own too much stuff.
And moving reminds me of it again and again and again. I can't hide things in closets for years on end. I clean out the garage every move. We get rid of things on a monthly basis to keep our weight allowance manageable. But we still have so much stuff.
Why don't we sell more things? Why don't we give more away? Well, with the military, we never know what we're going to face that next assignment. We might have a yard again. We might not. We dread getting rid of items because it almost never fails that we need it an assignment later!
Sometimes, I look forward to the day when the moving is finished. I love the excitement of discovering a new place. I crave the new adventures, the new foods, the new people. But I find a subtle pleasure in thinking about giving away my extra things. I dream of a home where everything will have it's place and the rest can go!
In that home, I'll have the things that I just can't bear to part with: the beautiful rugs my husband purchased in Afghanistan; our collection of salt glazed pottery from the area around Strasbourg, France; our chaise lounge found on big garbage day on a sunny German afternoon; our hand-painted watercolors on camel bone from Qatar, my pastel painting of the mountains in Alaska; and our books, our lovely collection of books.