We’ll Be Homeless Soon
I only see the void on that wall. A few years ago, Tim built a beautiful bar for me. Pretty much every day for the past year, I’d go to that spot on the wall, grab a hanging wine glass and fill it. Tim would fill a monogrammed whiskey glass with his custom blend. We often pulled a deck of cards out of the lower cabinet and spent some relaxing time together after a long day. But not tonight, not tomorrow, not ever again.
As we wrapped the bar cabinet in plastic and sent it away on a truck this morning, my heart got that sinking feeling of loss. Everything else we own will be leaving soon as well, even the beautiful, comfy bed we splurged on a few years ago, as we rid our ourselves of all earthly possessions aside from our suitcases. That luggage alone will travel the world with us in our new nomad, or slomad, life, untethered to the earth. For years we’ve planned and eagerly awaited this change of lifestyle, and usually we feel giddy with excitement. But the closer we get to our “launch” date just weeks away, and the more items we let go of, the more real the aspect of loss wedges its way into my psyche and my heart. This isn’t just that “in between” feeling of moving—because we’re not landing anywhere. We’re leaving our stuff, our family, our country—in a lot of ways we are leaving security and virtually everything “known.”
The deeply painful experience of once actually truly losing our home has taught us to value freedom over things. I’ve learned that life is fragile and “security” is never a sure thing, and I know that no matter what goes wrong, everything will be okay if we just keep working the problem. I’m looking forward to the great freedom of being completely unanchored.
My beautiful custom bar moved once before—a year ago, when we sold our house and about 2/3rds of what we owned. This is just the final purge of the “necessities” we brought to our apartment. We’ve been madly digitizing our memories and trying to unload all those pretty much worthless “valuables” we collected all our life or inherited. Throwing away all our family photos, for sure, is the toughest “letting go” I’ve had to do, but they’re all preserved in the cloud.
I actually enjoy getting rid of most things, but it’s surprising how much of it is sentimental—things I don’t even want or use but they belonged to my mom. Ya, I guess it’s mostly guilt. At least our kids will never bear the burden of disassembling our life, as we’ve done for all our parents (4 separate times), and for that I’m glad.
Unless our heirs want our dirty clothes and worn travel gear, all they have to do is collect cash as beneficiaries on bank accounts, assuming there’s any left. In a weird way, we will seem as intangible as ghosts, though we will feel more alive than ever.
