In the not too distant future, I’ll be moving house; in fact the packing has already begun in earnest. I have been boxing up my stuff as well as donating much to my local charity shops and dumping car boot loads at my local recycling centre (tip).
You might think that the process of decamping and decluttering would be cathartic and even exciting in the run up to the move…think new house, new location, new adventures…
…but you’d be wrong (at least to a degree anyway).
I have also found the process physical, tiring, stressful and, at times, depressing.
Firstly, a confession. In my house, it’s me that’s the hoarder. To be frank I own too much of everything that I collect, books, CDs, DVDs, clocks, jigsaw puzzles, cufflinks, models and assorted seventies treasures.
The disposal of stuff has meant some soul searching for me and some tougher than usual decision making. But there has been no celebrating in the Baldwin household, just pressure from Mrs B. to get rid of more.
She has a point – to be fair I don’t really need any of it. But collecting the “stuff” has given me much pleasure over the years and sacrificing it is like parting with bits of my soul.
And that parting has made me reflect on mortality more generally.
Moving will entail a quadrupled mortgage (and when we were quite close to paying off the existing one too). For the next twenty years, Mrs Baldwin and I are committed to working full time and being sensible with our expenditure. No wild holidays, flash motors, expensive jewellery or cosmetic surgery on the horizon. If she is looking forward to one, Mrs B. will have to wait for a divorce too (because we can't afford it).
Instead of entertaining thoughts of retiring early, I have found myself hoping that my body actually makes it to the end of the mortgage without letting me down. Whilst I am in reasonable shape (recently confirmed by my doctor), the impact of a potentially terminal type of illness is playing on my mind more than it did a few months ago. The “Stand Up to Cancer” event last Friday night didn’t help.
Critical illness cover was much cheaper 15 years ago than it is now and the new mortgage won’t be fully covered.
Week on week, I have been watching the new house rising from its foundations (it’s a new build). The roof timbers are on and it won’t be long before it is watertight. Part of me is excited to watch/photograph the progress but the financial commitment weighs on my mind like a malevolent counterbalance.
Mrs B. and I have talked about what happens if it all goes wrong (getting ill, losing jobs, mortgage rates going back up to the levels last seen at the end of the eighties etc.), the upshot being “we’ll sell the house”. Simple really.
And if it happened, downsizing would force me to get rid of more stuff if there was nowhere to put it…so maybe that’s the mind-set that I need to have when packing.
Blimey, an epiphany could be on the horizon here!
Being morbid again for a moment, when I die, Mrs B. and the kids would probably dispose of all my stuff anyway. Maybe I should save them the distress/pleasure.
I’ll approach next weekend’s packing with a new sense of purpose.
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You might think that the process of decamping and decluttering would be cathartic and even exciting in the run up to the move…think new house, new location, new adventures…
…but you’d be wrong (at least to a degree anyway).
I have also found the process physical, tiring, stressful and, at times, depressing.
Firstly, a confession. In my house, it’s me that’s the hoarder. To be frank I own too much of everything that I collect, books, CDs, DVDs, clocks, jigsaw puzzles, cufflinks, models and assorted seventies treasures.
The disposal of stuff has meant some soul searching for me and some tougher than usual decision making. But there has been no celebrating in the Baldwin household, just pressure from Mrs B. to get rid of more.
She has a point – to be fair I don’t really need any of it. But collecting the “stuff” has given me much pleasure over the years and sacrificing it is like parting with bits of my soul.
And that parting has made me reflect on mortality more generally.
Moving will entail a quadrupled mortgage (and when we were quite close to paying off the existing one too). For the next twenty years, Mrs Baldwin and I are committed to working full time and being sensible with our expenditure. No wild holidays, flash motors, expensive jewellery or cosmetic surgery on the horizon. If she is looking forward to one, Mrs B. will have to wait for a divorce too (because we can't afford it).
Instead of entertaining thoughts of retiring early, I have found myself hoping that my body actually makes it to the end of the mortgage without letting me down. Whilst I am in reasonable shape (recently confirmed by my doctor), the impact of a potentially terminal type of illness is playing on my mind more than it did a few months ago. The “Stand Up to Cancer” event last Friday night didn’t help.
Critical illness cover was much cheaper 15 years ago than it is now and the new mortgage won’t be fully covered.
Week on week, I have been watching the new house rising from its foundations (it’s a new build). The roof timbers are on and it won’t be long before it is watertight. Part of me is excited to watch/photograph the progress but the financial commitment weighs on my mind like a malevolent counterbalance.
Mrs B. and I have talked about what happens if it all goes wrong (getting ill, losing jobs, mortgage rates going back up to the levels last seen at the end of the eighties etc.), the upshot being “we’ll sell the house”. Simple really.
And if it happened, downsizing would force me to get rid of more stuff if there was nowhere to put it…so maybe that’s the mind-set that I need to have when packing.
Blimey, an epiphany could be on the horizon here!
Being morbid again for a moment, when I die, Mrs B. and the kids would probably dispose of all my stuff anyway. Maybe I should save them the distress/pleasure.
I’ll approach next weekend’s packing with a new sense of purpose.
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