Surprise!

You are doing what? 

This is almost guaranteed to be the response that you will get from most people when you tell them that you are going to sell the house, most of your belongings, and travel…for a while, hopefully a long while.  This is the reaction from virtually everyone we know.  Questions swirled around like a tornado; are you going to be homeless on purpose, what will you take, is this ACTUALLY what you want to do or is he/she making you do this? 

On a beautiful December evening, near Christmas 2020, I posed the question to Douglas: What if we sold the house and became digital nomads? His answer: let’s do it! Covid had given us a newfound liberty that we didn’t think would be possible for quite some time, remote work.  Strangely, the answer was still the same 2 days later when I asked if the response I had heard, was real. 

In the months that followed we had numerous garage sales, sold belongings online, and let our children go shopping through the house.  We also embarked on the tedious process of going through our home room by room and making repairs, repainting, and removing all our personal effects, leaving just staged rooms in the wake.  You never know how much stuff you have acquired over the years until you get ready to move.  Though this move was unlike any other, we categorized our belongings three ways – 1. Irreplaceable – such as family mementos and heirlooms 2. Items that were replaceable, but we deemed worth spending the money every month to store (more on this thought later) 3. Completely replaceable and can be sold or given away.  I will not try to sugar coat this, it was difficult at best but once we got going we were hooked.  I also have to admit that there is a 4th category we try not to talk about: things we just didn’t get around to going through, so they got boxed up – until later (whenever later is).

Our Spring and Summer roared past as I decided to follow my crazy heart and go stay in Tennessee for the summer and work at a Girl Scout camp, while Douglas stayed behind and continued to chip away at the to-do list that had become our life.   

Flash forward to August 2021, the house went on the market, sold withing 5 days and 30 days later we locked the door for the last time.  It really was a great house, with so many beautiful memories.  Tears were shed of sadness and joy…what in the WORLD had we just done! 

Let the adventure begin. 

Before I sign off…

Let’s get back to that storage unit I mentioned earlier.  Since our move we have come to realize that 75% or more of what we saved and stored in a 10×20 storage unit, could have gone by the wayside without another thought.  As a matter of fact, every time we get in that storage unit it elicits some very cranky reactions from one or both of us. We have been living in small apartments, single bedrooms and occasionally hotels.  Traveling with no more than we can fit in a backpack and carry-on suitcase makes us realize that we own way too much stuff (still)!