Such a Beautiful Burden
The Hurculean effort of lightening our load.
Picking up on that cliff hanger I left last post- we knew that wherever we went had to be both inexpensive and also filled with adventure worthy of a 180 degree change.
Not many first world countries met both criteria. Chilling at Mom and Dad’s house would be free but lacking adventure, no matter what Mom says about the Walmart parking lot. Living in Singapore or Europe would be filled with adventure but very expensive. We were gonna need to go third world for this trip.
My husband lived in Panama for the Peace Corps for about two and a half years, but that was it and neither of us ever lived anywhere outside of the United States since having kids. But, like the rising sun burns away the morning fog, it became clear to us where we needed to go- INDIA.
For our close friends and family, the destination made sense. My husband is half Indian; our children (regardless of how they look) are 1/4. Part of their DNA, part of their heritage, and part of their cultural identity are all moored in the country of Rudyard Kipling’s romantic writings.
Now that we’d made the decision on WHERE to go, we needed to figure out HOW to get there. Like a goldfish in a 100 gallon tank, our life had expanded exponentially to fill a massive home, 5 car garage, and acreage. We had stuff, y’all. Trucks, tractors, garden and animal supplies, furniture, food, crafts, and everything else that comes along with the life of six busy and creative people. Our beautiful, spacious, and luxurious home was enabling hoarding to happen in a slow and insidious way. It was our drug dealer and we needed to kick the habit cold turkey. We needed to sell that house.
If Hawai’i had taught me anything it was that you never get to know what happens next. I thought island life was our final destination and that we had time to do all the things we wanted to get done. My approach in Walla Walla was the opposite: you don’t know what tomorrow brings so just do it all and it get all today. This all or nothing mantra ran unbridled during our short time in Washington and as we took visual inventory of all of our things we knew, it was finally time to pay the piper.
We listed the house for one month and after a couple of low-ball offers we took it off the market and began preparations for vacation renting. Plan B’s are never ideal but they’re fine and we needed to move forward. This is now the end of March 2023 and we had tickets for India departing May 21. Needless to say, the last couple of months were a bit of a blur. To catapult our purge, we had an unsuccessful garage sale, donated van loads of items, gave things to friends and neighbors, and relegated ourselves to each bringing just a single checked suitcase and a backpack on our trip. We had a plan and all we needed to do was check things off, one by one. Easier said than done, my friends.
The tough part of vacation-rental prep is the fact that you have to buy MORE stuff. Apparently the luxury rental market doesn’t want twin beds, they want kings. They don’t want a backyard sprinkler, they want a hot tub. They don’t care about your mason jars of various sizes for drinking glasses, they want uniformity. Huge beds, tons of bedding, hundreds of towels in all sizes, a hot tub, and dishes, glassware and Adirondak chairs… Our home looked like an Amazon distribution center. I had to keep track of all the new things coming in for the rental and all the old things going out from our life. Instead of progress, it felt like we were drowning in stuff. All this hard work and preparation felt like a net neutral process where we were treading rough waters and would never make it to the safety of the shore. Time was running out. It was now May 7 and we could feel our skin burning from the crosshairs squarely aimed at us all.
To be continued…
How sweet of you Jennifer! Thank you!
Wow so cute and so sad at the time