No one tells you how strange it feels to pack your life into boxes. You start with excitement, bubble wrap, playlists, and takeaway coffee, but somewhere around box 27, it becomes a weirdly emotional audit of your past selves. Every drawer uncovers a version of you that you have forgotten: the you who took salsa classes, the you who had three curling irons, the you who believed scented drawer liners existed.
Do you find yourself posing the questions yourself? Do I need this? Why do I still have this? Will I miss this? And then, sometimes, you’re not even sure what “this” is.
The Delight of the Toss
There is some kind of therapy to get rid of things. The dress that never seemed to fit right, the pile of notebooks with only three pages used in each, the random cords that no longer belonged to anything since they were made ten years ago. It was such a relief to push them all into the donation bags or hampers without contemplating it too long. It clarified the essentials. It also made me see how much stuff had been lugged around simply because it had been meaningful and maybe cost money. Guilt, however, is not enough to justify possessing a broken lamp.
The Still Retreats
And then there are the things you throw and regret. With me, it was an old shoebox of letters I had presumed I’d scanned. I hadn’t. They’re now lost to me, and I’m finding myself dwelling on them. It’s not the paper; it’s the person I was who wrote it and the people who wrote to me. You can’t keep everything, but it did teach me this: save a little box for what’s irreplaceable. It’s not “nice to have” items; only the “if I lost this, I’d feel a little less myself” items.
The Surprising Discoveries
As I sorted through my moving boxes, I found the deed to my first apartment creased and tucked between old tax forms. It was a quiet reminder of how easy it is to misplace documents that matter. When deciding what to keep, especially for anything tied to your home, reliable property deed resources can help clarify what’s worth filing and what you can safely let go. After all, in the middle of packing chaos, the last thing you want is to lose proof of ownership.
What’s Worth Holding Onto
Photos. Not all of them are the ones where someone’s laughing. One fantastic knife. That cup of coffee enhances your coffee for no apparent reason. And documents establishing who you are and what you’ve created. Even if you’re going digital, having originals is where it matters. You’d be surprised at how frequently life requires proof of ownership, of identity, of choices you made years previously.
Moving Isn’t Just Physical
The physical parcel tape, van rentals, and shin-banged thighs are just the beginning. The other half is emotional. You’re leaving behind a chapter of your life and moving to the next one without an idea of what it is. That’s the complicated part. But getting rid of the stuff you don’t need, keeping the essentials, and knowing where all the important things are? That makes starting anew slightly more stable.