Geezers in our community have all moved here from somewhere else. We all had BIG houses and now we have SMALL houses. It is hard to move. It's hard to get rid of treasures. It's hard to downsize. Gees if you know how hard it is do, tell your friends, so they can get ready to do it later. I still have more downsizing to do. I went from four bedrooms, a 3 car garage, a 40 foot barn on some acreage to 2 bedrooms and den, a 2 car garage on a city lot. My new home is lovely, but it's only half a home the rest is missing in action.
It's hard. How do you downsize? Geezers have spent a lifetime getting stuff. Geezers had houses filled with the stuff from kids and grand kids, jobs and memories. Now we geezers have decided to move. Go some place where life and the weather are easy. Go someplace with a different set of adventures..the first one is downsizing.
Do you throw everything away from your old home and start fresh? You ask the kids and grand kids to take what they want. But they take just a few things ---definitely not enough. Then you ask friends and neighbors to pick over your treasures to see if there's anything they want. It's a slow and heartbreaking process. Everything you give away has some deep sentimental meaning.
One day during our downsizing effort I was picking thru stuff and laughing and crying at the same time. My geezer husband heard the noise I was making and came in to check on me. I related what I was doing and soon both of us were laughing and crying. Two geezers taking a trip down memory lane does not help with downsizing but it was good for our hearts.
When my parents downsized they decided to have a giant yard sale. The stuff of their life was put on the chopping block for pennies on the dollar. The vultures, I mean, yard salers, came before the sale started and picked over their treasures and bargained away my parents' life. It was horrible. I vowed we would never do that again.
We didn't. We went thru our precious stuff and winnowed it down to 100 boxes. It was sad. It was hard. I never want to do it again. How do you pick and choose what to take and not to take? Do you say YES and your hubby says NO (or vice versa). There's no easy answer here. If you take everything with you, then where are you going to put it at the other end? Renting a storage space is rather redundant and definitely not in the spirit of downsizing.
On the first day of my first professional job, I learned that one of my colleagues was downsizing from a big house to a boat. She and her husband decided they needed to get rid of a card table worth of stuff every day for a year. The card table space was a 36 inch cube. The first few weeks were easy. As the year progressed, it was getting harder and harder to find the "easy stuff." On the last day of the year she put her empty house on the market and she and her husband sailed away on their boat. I never heard from her again, but I remember every day in the break room the story of what they had downsized the day before. I wish I had taken better notes. I did remember the card table idea. Of course we did not use it.
In our Geezerville some folks were lucky to have golf-cart garages built into their home--whee--their own built in storage area for the last ton of boxes that need to be digested in the house. You think I'm exaggerating --I'm not. My little house does not have the golf cart storage area, so I only have the tiny 2 car garage for extra stuff. I've been in my new house for 2 years and I still have boxes that need to be unpacked. I have no idea what is in them but if I open them up, then I'll have to decide what to do with the stuff...and there's no room for the stuff...so it stays in the boxes hidden behind a chair in the corner of my den. They are hidden until someone goes into my den and discovers my stash of unopened boxes. It's embarrassing. But what is this geezer going to do?
I'm not the only one with stuff. One neighbor has half of her garage filled with boxes. She goes thru a few a week and digests the stuff into the house but it seems like the boxes are growing instead of decreasing number. It's true--as she reorganizes 2 boxes into one box, there are still left-over stuff that has to be put somewhere so another box gets started. At least the stuff is better organized.
Then there's the geezer neighbor who has bought a fantastic contraption that makes an attic type area inside his garage in the space between the garage door and the ceiling. When the door is down you see a wall of neatly stacked boxes--when the door is up, the boxes are still there but harder to see. Out of sight out of mind. He said he's afraid of what he's going to find.
Another neighbor has several matching Rubbermaid cabinets lining her garage. They are gorgeous. She has one car and these cabinets. I'm afraid to ask what is inside them but she did tell me that she has a bunch of boxes to "deal with." Every geezer I know, has a few boxes to deal with.
So if you are a geezer and thinking of downsizing think long and hard. Think about the stuff that you absolutely need. Do you really need all of your dishes? Or tools? Or cars? Make lists of stuff you keep and stuff you "got rid of." Let your actions brew for awhile. Don't make immediate decisions as this is the stuff you are going to be left with. Is this the best most important stuff? Every geezer in Geezerville has a downsize story. Listen to them and learn. Then come back and tell me what to do with my left over boxes of treasures.
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