The difference a phone call can make.
Your plans can change in an instant!
That phone call was a game changer. It was probably May 7 or 8, and it was from the vacation property manager we were working with. But did I hear her correctly? The words bounced around my brain like lettered dice in a Boggle cube. Would we be willing to sell the house off-market to someone looking to buy a turn-key, furnished luxury vacation rental? How many languages could I say YES in?! It turns out that English was just fine, and so they scheduled a showing with our realtor for the 13th of May. Ravi and I were elated. We knew the house showed like a fine-cut gem so really all we could do was wait and see. Hope filled us like hot air balloons, so we did our best to keep one another tethered to the possibility that this might fall through. This might not be what the buyers are looking for, and we may end up living in India with a very expensive liability in our portfolio.
One week and one showing later, we had a great offer and a lifeline. The buyers wanted turn-key and we would do our best. As I looked through our home I tried to untangle myself from attachments to our things. We’d brought a few nice pieces from Hawai’i that I loved but did I love them enough to pay to store them?
In 2015, I read Marie Kondo’s book, The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up. We knew in 2 years we would be moving from Rochester, MN to O’ahu when Ravi finished residency, and we knew we couldn’t possibly take 7 years and 3500sqft of furniture and life with us. That book spoke to me. For those remaining 2 years in Minnesota, I was able to reduce all of our “essential” belongings down to 2 wooden 8’x8’ crates. Most of that was heirloom furniture we would be returning to my parents who were living in the islands at the time. It was a time-consuming and emotionally exhausting process, but I remembered the freedom I felt as I watched the moving truck pull away.
I used that experience as my guidepost on what to store and what to leave. This was also the guidance we gave our kids when instructing them on their packing. We made sure they knew they could keep anything they wanted but that this would also be an opportunity to go through their personal inventory and “trim the fat” so to speak. “You will be one year older and one year bigger when you see these things again,” I told them. It’s tough to make projections on an unknown future, but the kids were amazing throughout the process. Having your kids (if they are old enough) participate and make their own decisions in this process is something I would highly recommend.
My oldest son wanted to let go of almost everything. I left 2 empty boxes in his room and he filled up just half of one. He was born for a life of less. My oldest daughter kept sentimental items and also decided that one week was more than enough time for her to begin and finish a new sewing project. I mean, you can’t go to India without matching clothes for you and your dog, can you? My youngest daughter thought this was an exercise in futility as she would be keeping everything she had ever seen or looked at or owned since the beginning of time. She is a hoarder. I packed for her since I knew she wanted to keep it all, and she was heavily grieving giving our three kitty boys away. My youngest son simply needed a little help fitting his things into the boxes. His room was always neat and orderly, and he was resolute in the both the items he kept and the ones he gave away.
With the kids’ items out of the way it was time to work on Ravi’s and my personal things. Have you guys ever looked at a space and thought to yourself, “Psh, this will only take me about an hour to pack/sort/organize.”? I had that thought with every single room, and guess what? I WAS NEVER CORRECT. Not one dang thing took only an hour. According to my calculations, the pantry alone was going to take roughly one billion years, and we had just under a week before we were wheels up. Why was this so hard? We were leaving 90% of everything with the house after all.
The furniture and big ticket items are never the time-consuming part of packing. It’s all the sundries, all the details, all the knick-knacks, and all the junk drawer stuff that steals your time and energy. Dang it, that sucks. Ravi’s mom (shout out to Shelley) came the week before to set up the garage sale and help with odds and ends for which we were so grateful. But once Ravi suggested hiring movers, I felt lightheaded with relief and happiness. We needed professional help but the thought had not crossed my mind since we weren’t bringing large items. This is why sometimes two minds are better than one.
We diligently went through each area and physically put things into 4 categories: keep, giveaway, pack, and bring. The “keep” items would stay with the house and become part of the decor for future renters enjoying a Pacific Northwest Wine Country getaway. The “giveaway” items went to friends, neighbors, Craigslist, and a local donation center. The “pack” items would be brought to the garage for the movers to store in a Washington state warehouse. And, the “bring” items would come overseas with us in either our checked bag or backpack. Finally, actual, visible, real progress was happening. The movers came Tuesday and Wednesday, May 17 and 18. FedEx delivered the kids’ OCI cards shortly after the movers left. We would be leaving the 21st.
With the movers and all of our personal belongings gone and kids’ OCI cards in hand, we were able to catch our breath and take stock of what needed to happen next. The day before the movers came, we were at an orthopedic surgeon’s office for a follow-up visit regarding our oldest daughter’s finger. She’d broken it the month before during an unfortunate fist-bump with Ravi whilst playing a competitive game of family beach volleyball. Good news; her finger was healing fine, and she could take the splint off. Even better news; we got a phone call from our realtor before the surgeon came in and, unbelievably, the duplexes-fiasco was over. The developers were releasing our escrow funds, and we would be unshackled from this mold-infested, acid-reflux inducing investment forever. We drove home from the doctor’s office, not in a black Hybrid Chrysler Pacifica, but on cloud nine. This week was rounding out from being one of the most stressful to one of the best ones ever.
With the house packed, a finger healed, Duplex-Gate over, and our home under contract, there were only a few more things left to do before we jetted off in economy class style around the world. We sold Ravi’s main truck in 10 minutes on Vroom.com (highly recommend), but a tractor, Ravi’s diesel farm truck, and our minivan were not sold. Additionally, we had still not gotten the green light from Qatar Airlines for Blue to fly, and my OCI card was still MIA.
Now, we knew the vehicles would be fine without us there to sell them. One of the gentlemen who laid the cement pad for our hot tub also happened to be a licensed farm and heavy equipment broker. For a 10% fee he would happily be in charge of that responsibility. My OCI card would likely take months longer to process, and I had a 5-year Indian travel visa with a few more years until it expired that I could rely on in the meantime. Blue was an issue though. We had been working for months on all the documentation and necessary paperwork for him to travel with us. He’d recently gotten the green light from India, but Qatar Air was giving us the runaround.
We were sweating bullets. T’was the night before our flight and all through the house, our bags were packed, goodbyes to our wonderful friends given, and a rented 12-passenger van waited in our driveway for the 4-hour drive to Seattle Airport in the morning. We fell asleep still not knowing if Blue would get permission to fly with us the following day. One thing was for sure; we were not leaving this country without him.
