Packing It Up

I am a bit of minimalist so I thought packing up my two bedroom apartment would be a breeze. I was wrong.

Anyone who has ever downsized will tell you it is a challenge. I really thought people were making it up. It’s easy I had moved a million times - keep, donate, trash and move it along. Downsizing to fit in a van is VERY DIFFERENT. I cannot emphasize this enough. Van does not equal two bedroom apartment.

My furniture, art, and decor, I had spent years collecting and curating would all have to go through the process of ‘keep, donate, trash’ and it was a lot to take in. I had planned to put a couple things that I didn’t want to let go of into storage - my washer, dryer, a mid century wooden dresser, clothes that I didn’t plan on bringing along, my bed frame. Just the essentials that would be hard to replace if I ended up hating living in a van. My ‘just in cases’. And hello, I will need a bed frame and washer and dryer at some point, right??

So, downsize I did and gave away plants I had been growing for 8+ years. It was hard and time consuming but ultimately nice to see some things that had brought me such joy go to happy new homes. I only had about a two weeks to get out of my apartment because I had told my landlord I was going to move at the end of June, not factoring in my vacation to Montana before the move out date. I packed my CRV with all the things I thought I would need for the van and headed out to TN at the beginning of July to get to work.