All That Stuff

Renting out my home while I'll be away has enabled me to come up with the airfare to travel for 7 weeks this spring. I'll be going to Taiwan, Bali, Singapore, and China. Most of the time, I'll be visiting friends made and nurtured over 20 years of my nomadic life in Asia. It used to be much easier to prepare for traveling before I owned a home and had numerous obligations. My head and scraps of paper are filling up with "to do" lists related to going away.

I thought that having renters would offer a compelling reason to go through lots of accumulated "stuff" in my house to lighten it up for the renters. That's easier said than done. I have re-connected with old photos, clothes, and souvenirs that I truly no longer "need," but can't quite seem to throw away or give away.

I wondered what it would be like to go back to zero and start again with nothing. But then a friend of mine had a devastating fire in her home and lost everything. The reality of what it would mean to lose 66 years of my material life possessions was sobering. All those pictures I never could throw away? All those English books and papers I saved from my teaching years? All those letters I had saved during the years when people still communicated with paper, pen, and stamps? All those books I saved because they had influenced my life in some way? All those silly mementos I picked up around the world? All those journals and scrapbooks I had poured my memories into? All those old clothes I never got around to wearing? All the flotsam and jetsam I had collected from here and there? Furniture and useful items could be replaced, but it would be the things of no monetary value that I'd miss the most.

And yet, if I decide to live abroad again, I would have to give up all these things.
When I changed countries as a middle-aged hummingbird, I only had what I could carry with me. And I can say I didn't miss much of anything I left behind. Sometimes I imagine I will re-examine all my photos, re-read all those letters, re-look at all those mementos in my really old age to remind me of the details I forgot. But, will I actually ever do that?

For now, I throw out some things, re-package other things, and am thankful I don't really have to make a final decision about how to live without them quite yet.