This week we moved out of our apartment. All but the 315 pounds in our luggage went into storage or were shed in a series of purges. We have packed and repacked, each time molting possessions and becoming lighter and lighter.
I have the “first world problem” of owning massive amounts of clothing, easily more than I could wear through in a lifetime. Earlier in the month I donated of several garbage bags of clothing, but my clothes still totaled 183 pounds, not counting the 30 pounds of sweaters I sent to Chile with a friend! I divided my clothing into three piles: high priority, medium priority, and low priority. After I packed the high priority, I divided the medium priority into three subgroups (high-medium, medium-medium, and low-medium). I shed 79 pounds of clothes from the low-medium and low, which made room for my shoes…
So many people helped us with our move. They bought our furniture, made us dinners during the height of the stress, and in the case of my parents, drove 5 hours to lend their pick-up truck and carry boxes. The support we received made it go smoothly, although it was still hectic. We had to make decisions about almost every item in the household. It’s hard to anticipate now where we will be in two years or what we will need. Europa-bound? Established in Chile permanently? On our way to the West Coast?
We spent so much time weighting and reweighing our luggage. We packed each of our big bags (we can check 2 each) to be exactly 3 pounds over the 50 pound limit. We thought we could probably get away with an extra 3 pounds, but today Carlos’ tia and tio offered to bring a bag for us when they come down in a few weeks, so now each of our bags is 49 pounds and perfectly under the limit. It seems like a lot of luggage when we can barely stuff it into our car (see photo below), but when I consider that it’s all we are bringing for two years, it seems like very little.
Pelo de choclo 