My parents moved out of state this past week. I wrote up a rather large rant on the subject, but after taking a few days to clear my thoughts, I decided to rewrite it into something maybe a little more useful.
Nobody ever moves and thinks, “Wow, I’m glad I have all this stuff!” And this is only natural, as having less is very useful when you’re moving, while having more is (potentially) very useful when you’re stationary.
For my parents, though, this took an interesting form. They used to live in a house with a large basement, but then they downsized to a townhouse with no basement. While much had to be placed in storage, I was very proud of them when they were finally able to cancel that monthly storage fee, having truly downsized over time. But after I moved out, my long room, though then featuring a queen size bed for guests, became the de facto storage room which, if I recall correctly, became harder and harder to stay in over the course of several years, due to the accumulation of boxes.
Helping my parents move was a pain, not because I don’t like helping people move, but because I had the chance to see all of the stuff that was weighing them down. As is only too natural, there were so many things I wanted to throw in the bin for them, but you just can’t do that.
Now, I want to be clear: I love my parents, I really do. And also to be clear, they have less than most people their age do. But seeing them struggle under the weight of all of their possessions really makes me want to share some critical insights.
Do not, under any circumstances, underestimate the weight of your possessions.
I’m not talking about the physical weight, though that’s not a bad thing to consider. I’m talking about the emotional weight. My mom made a valiant effort to clear through things and find what to give away and what to throw away. But this process lasted over 8 or 9 months. There’s nothing easy about getting rid of things: it’s a truly complicated process. But after all that time, I’m not completely sure what she accomplished, I hate to say. I still lost track of all the retail boxes of this, that, and the other. And that’s what happens when you neglect to pair things down over time: you end up devoting much time over the course of a year to cleaning it out, only to still have loads of things in the end. It became her burden in the evenings and on weekends, when she really needed the rest instead. This applied to my dad, too, mostly with the garage, but he isn’t the one buying things from mail order catalogs all the time.
Make sure your possessions have the proper value in your life.
There was a time not too long ago when my mom was afraid she wouldn’t be able to host the entirety of my sister’s then-growing family. “I don’t know that I have enough space!”
I tried to present a challenging question to her: “Do you want the stuff, or do you want to see your grandkids? Which is more important to you?” She brushed this off with the excuse that half the stuff was for them, which I wasn’t buying, but what are you going to do, argue with your mom?
I’m not trying to beat up too much on my mom, as this way of thinking is extremely common. I originally had some (I thought) eloquent ways of expressing how much this way of thinking pisses me off, but I’m sure I’m guilty of it sometimes, too. I just hate how people hold onto $20 items because “it’s worth something” even though they never use it. What is a room full of shit worth to you? $100? $200? If I had to pay $1,000 for peace of mind, I would, that’s how much I value my sanity. But people often have this flawed idea that throwing $20 out is sacrilege, so instead, they pay for it with their mental health their entire lives. You’ve GOT to know your priorities, time/life is short enough the way it is.
And I understand that $20 can be a lot of money for people at certain stages of life, but for the vast majority of people, it just isn’t very significant. And especially if you never use the object, it isn’t helping you anyway. If that’s truly the case, then you should have spent that $20 on something that can help you earn more money, but that’s an unequal treatment of something that could be it’s own rant.
Owning Things Costs You Money
For the first load of boxes my parents took to their destination, my dad bought a storage unit that was too small. For the second load that includes all of the furniture, they hired some movers to pack everything, but then they also had to rent a 26′ truck. They don’t have a place to stay yet, and so will be in a hotel for a week, and then they will likely need to rent another storage unit to put this stuff in so they can return the truck and stop paying for that. Then once they do find a place they will probably need to keep a storage unit or two since a new place likely won’t have as much space.
This is the part that really bothers me because I’m just afraid for them. I don’t know how much money they set aside for all this. But it seems unavoidable that the entire process is costing them way more then it should.
In computer science, there’s this concept of computational complexity, where the speed of an algorithm can be generalized based on its characteristics. A process that can immediately perform a match, for example, is said to be of type theta, as it’s nothing more than a lookup. Stupid fast, typically. But a process that has to perform a computation a specific number of times is said to be of type theta(n), as the complexity directly corresponds to the time it takes to perform n. But a process that performs an operation as a function of other factors evaluated at run time is said to be of type theta(n^2), which means the computational requirement is potentially explosive and can slow a server to a crawl. People don’t realize that possessions can be like this. The more you have, the greater the complexity, but also, the more variables that can potentially cost you as well, especially the hidden (inherent and extended) costs of a thing. It seems like theta(n) because you have n stuff, until you realize that this costs money to store, to maintain, to use, to repair, and to move, and you have to be the one to sit down and decide whether it’s important to you or not (for better or worse).
It killed me turning up the second to last day and see all of the leftover stuff that my parents were going to deal with without the help of the movers. It looked simple, but I know it would be a grueling process. I tried to help in what ways I could, but there was very little I could do, as they had certain ways they wanted to deal with everything at the end. Unsurprisingly, they were working on this late the next day when they really should have been driving. I wish they could have been able to rest instead.
Final Thoughts
“But, Risky!” you say. “This is my forever home! Why worry about moving if I’m never going to leave where I’m at?”
Like hell, you’re not. Maybe 1/10 who buy a house never move, but life happens, and moving is the destiny of most people. I knew a guy who bought a house and flouted the whole, “This is our forever home!” phrase, but then he moved 3 years later. It left a little smirk on my face, but it’s honestly not my desire to shit on people, I just hope he learned the lesson that life changes and it’s important to be flexible [and buying house is not always the best decision].
Honestly, this is still one danger of buying a house, in my opinion: since houses are typically larger than apartments, houses very easily becomes mausoleums (though don’t think for a second people don’t sometimes also pack their apartments to the ceiling). My neighbor can only fit one car in his garage, and another neighbor down the street has a two-car garage filled to the ceiling. I’m amazed at how common this is. Mind you, my parents did fit both of their cars in the garage attached to the townhouse, but that’s why I also want to give them credit for having less than most people their age. And if moving still sucked for them, imagine what all these other people would have to deal with!
All I can really do is pray for my parents, pray that everything works out, and everything falls into place. I know that God is faithful, and I’m incredibly grateful that my parents are moving now as opposed to last year. It really means a tremendous amount to me that I’ve been able to see them regularly this far into my year off.
But it kind of has me on the war path, too. Since moving to this house, I have far fewer Legos, papers, and miscellaneous boxes, for which I’m quite proud. But I also have more furniture, more tools, more books, and more game consoles. The rationale you and I use for keeping things is not tremendously different from the rationale used by hoarders; it only differs in scale. As such, considering the fact that I will still very likely be moving next year, it occurs to me that while some things I own are quite special to me, the rest are not.