Stuff, Part I - Mementos of a Childhood

Folks of a certain age and with a penchant for irreverent humor will surely remember George Carlin, the comedian.  He had one particular routine simply called "Stuff" and it resonates with Art and me as we face a supremely daunting yet necessary task on our journey to being full-time vagabonds: getting rid of all of our stuff.

George told us:  "That's all your house is - a place to keep your stuff.  A place to keep your stuff while you go out and get...more stuff! Sometimes you gotta move, gotta get a bigger house. Why? No room for your stuff anymore."

Art and I have been married for over 40 years, which is plenty of time to accumulate stuff.  Lots of stuff.  More stuff than will EVER fit into a 37 foot Class A (that's the motorhome we're currently leaning towards buying...but that's another blog entry).

Here's just some of the stuff we need to deal with before we can sell our house:

- Books (sooo many books!)

- Collections (Santa Claus figurines, minerals, little castles...MANY Santa Claus figurines, MANY minerals, MANY little castles)

- Furniture (a whole darn houseful of it)

- Kitchen stuff (lots and lots of kitchen stuff...many spatulas)

- Lapidary equipment (wanna buy a rock saw the size of a coffin?)

- Family heirlooms (uh-oh...danger, Will Robinson, danger!)

...and last, but most definitely not least...

- Our only child's childhood memorabilia (WHAT?  You want me to just throw away the Valentine's Day card he made for me when he was five?  I don't think so...)

We have our work cut out for us, yes?

Alrighty then, it's time to get to work.  But just how does one properly dispose of 40+ years of stuff?

WAIT!  WAIT!  WAIT!

Before I go any further, I'm going to make an executive decision and change that word.  "Dispose" sounds so cold, so impersonal.  And as you can see from the list above, some of what needs to go is very personal indeed.

So what would sound better, FEEL better to me?  To "part with" something sounds ever so much kinder than to "dispose" of it.  But actually, what I'm really doing is letting go of all this stuff that has had a hold on me. 

"Letting go..."  That's much better.   It softens the blow (and the guilt) just a little bit to think that I'm letting go of a keepsake rather than disposing of it.  By the way, you'll notice that I'm the one who is struggling with all this, not Art...I'm the one who has to work at letting go.  Art finds it much easier.  Why?  Is it because he's a male?  Or because he's an engineer?  Or because he's a male engineer?  Whatever the reason (and I may jest, but I would really like to know), Art and our son Nick are my voices of reason when it comes to letting go of the things that I tend to have a firm emotional hold on.  Many thanks to my guys for their interventions.

Okay then.  Where were we?  Ah, yes...just how does one properly "let go" of 40+ years of stuff?

And what should we have a go at first?

Since I knew that - for me - the most wrenching stuff to part with would be all those mementos lovingly collected as our son Nick - our only child - grew up, I decided they should be considered and dealt with first.  If I could let go of a drawing that Nick had made of me over 25 years ago, then I could let go of just about anything.  Right?  Right?

Well, after some pretty deep soul searching, some brutal honesty and a pep talk from the child himself, I realized and accepted three things:

1)  We simply would not have enough room in our new motorhome, despite its extra storage, for all the keepsakes I had saved throughout the years.

2)  I really only looked at all these tokens of Nick's childhood whenever I had to move them for some reason...I never took them out just for the sake of oohing and aahing over them.

3)   Nick, a devoted minimalist, didn't want any of them.

Ah, I was getting closer in my valiant effort to let go of all this precious stuff.  But I wasn't quite there yet.  Until Art reminded me that all of those sweet little mementos and keepsakes are not Nick.  They are memories of someone he once was, but they are not him.  They are not who he is now.

They are not who he is NOW.

For various reasons that belong in a completely different blog, NOW has become a magic word for me.  As corny as this may sound, what do we have if we don't have now?  We no longer have yesterday, we do not yet have tomorrow.  We have today.  We have NOW. 

That line of reasoning may not work for everyone trying to let go of sentimental emotionally-charged stuff.  Everyone's path to the point of being able to let go will be different.  But since I strive very hard to be aware of NOW, it worked for me.

And so then came my not-as-reluctant-as-I-would-have-thought epiphany: in my heart of hearts, I now knew I would survive letting go of all the handmade Mother's Day cards, the first pair of shoes, the favorite books, the favorite stuffed animals, the favorite little Mickey Mouse tee-shirt, the favorite toy, the lock of hair from Nick's first haircut.

So after one final ooh and aah, a few of the cards and drawings and stories were scanned, the books were donated to the local library, and the shoes and clothing and toys were donated to a local thrift store.

I was even able to let go of the favorite stuffed animals.  Actually, they were so worn and shabby, and they literally had stuffing coming out of their ears, so they were...they were...sigh.  In the spirit of full disclosure, yes, they were disposed of.

What's next?  Well, while I'm in the right frame of mind for letting go of stuff that carries an emotional punch, perhaps I'll tackle the family heirlooms.  Or books.  Those dear old friends, books.

Oh, dear.  I sense I will need another intervention.


  

Behold!  The Cedar Chest of Childhood!

A Veritable Treasure Chest of Memories

Nick's Childhood Flashes Before My Eyes...

 

"Our Family - 1988"  (5 years old, still in his "no body" phase)

Mission Accomplished!

You're Going To Do WHAT?

On July 6th of this year, Art and I returned from a truly amazing adventure in our motorhome.  In 174 days, we logged 10,547 miles, traveled through 22 states and camped in 67 separate campsites.

We came home with many memories, a couple of new tee-shirts, thousands of photos and one really big life-changing decision.

That particular decision began, as many do, with an idea, a "what if" seed that was planted on the Gulf Coast of Texas.  It then sprouted in the Everglades and then grew and grew, watered and fertilized by all the marvelous adventures we were having.  By the time we had reached North Carolina, it had grown and matured enough that we knew we had a keeper.

The "what if" seed/idea became a dream, and the dream became a plan.

The plan?  To sell our house and full-time in our motorhome.

Really?  Really.

Seriously?  Seriously.

Why?  Why would Art and I, 64 and 61 years old respectively, decide to sell our wonderful house, get rid of virtually all of our possessions and live full-time in a motorhome?

Because every single stop we made on this trip of five months and 22 days was too short.  Way too short.  The Gulf Coast, the Everglades, the Great Smokeys, Merritt Island, Williamsburg, Washington D.C., Gettysburg, the San Juan Mountains of Colorado, Southern Utah...I could go on and on and on.  We wanted to stay longer, much longer, at each and every stop, but we couldn't.  We had commitments that drove us forward to our next stop, where - once again - we would have to depart too soon, leaving so much unexplored.

But...what if we didn't have to be back home?  What if we could stay as long as we wanted at each stop?  What if we could just keep on going?

What if, what if, what if...

What if we sold the house and went full-time?

And so the seed of this crazy idea was planted.  And grew and grew and grew.  And became less and less crazy the more and more we thought about it and researched it and thought about it some more.

Yet we wondered...when we arrive back home, back to our beloved house with its beautiful views of surrounding mountains, would we change our minds?

We've now been home for four weeks and I can honestly say there has not been one moment of uncertainty for either of us.  Yes, we love this house, but we love traveling and exploring even more. 

Family and friends who now know of our decision have been supportive and excited for us, yet concerned.  Their concern regards health issues and is justified and appreciated.  Yet those health issues will exist wherever we are - sitting at home or kayaking in the Everglades.  And we know where we'd rather be and what we'd rather be doing.  Yes, doctor visits and medical tests will take a bit more planning, but fortunately, we are not blazing a trail here...the Internet is brimming with resources shared by folks who have aleady been there, done that.

But (why does there always have to be a "but"?), we have so much to do: get rid of most of our stuff, sell the house, sell the current motorhome, get a new (and bigger) motorhome, figure out insurance, decide in which state to establish our legal domicile and try to anticipate any gotchas.  AND try to figure out in what order we should do all those things.  Picture two jugglers...right now, that's us.

And so, the blog.  Welcome to Viking Vagabonds, a blog that will endeavor to document the adventures and misadventures (because there are sure to be some) of a couple of 60-somethings as we transition from homeowners of 39 years to full-time RVers, living 24/7/365 in a motorhome that is smaller than our living room.

Through this blog, I hope to document the various aspects of our transition, as a way of keeping us on track and also keeping family and friends up-to-date.  And if it should, by any chance, help any other folks who dream of going full-time, so much the better.

In closing this first post, we'd like to thank our son Nick for the blog's logo.  He designed it for us back in 2011 when Art and I rented a motorhome in Scandinavia and kept a blog of that adventure.  But it is also perfect for this blog...and the resemblances are rather remarkable, don't you think?  :-)

We also want to thank Nick for his enthusiasm and encouragement regarding our decision.  His support means more to us than we can say.

Until next time...

"For all its material advantages, the sedentary life has left us edgy, unfulfilled.  The open road still softly calls, like a nearly forgotten song of childhood." - Carl Sagan