The Art of Letting Go

I'm talking about THINGS rather than places

An early morning walk in our *new* neighborhood!

Almost a month ago, I began the difficult task of getting rid of our belongings in preparation for our move to Florida. And now…I’m doing it again. After living with only a suitcase’s worth of things, our POD arrived on our doorstep Monday morning and it was an absolute disaster. We didn’t know whether to laugh or cry, so we laughed.

There was no promise of things being intact. We certainly weren’t when we arrived in Orlando. My husband, the sole driver, was tired. We were all tired. It was hot. We’d spent the past week living in a car, bouncing from one hotel to another. We only brought what we could physically fit in our rental SUV.

We began slowly clearing out our things in April, and by mid-June, had taken at least 15 trips to the local donation center. I felt rather smug and productive when the POD driver came to pick up our stuff, thinking we had packed 90% of it. Turns out, we did not. During our final days at the house, we stood in the kitchen looking shell-shocked as if we had just seen a ghost…the Reality Ghost.

“How in the world did we get so much stuff?” my husband asked.

“I have no clue,” I said.

Our space is smaller, but it’s not bad at all because we get nice views like this one.

I really don’t. But the more I think about it, the more it becomes clear. It’s the accumulation of life. When we moved into our house in 2019, we were suddenly awarded with three times the amount of space we had before. For 12 years prior, we lived in a 650 square feet apartment in NE Portland. We moved in before we got married and stayed even after we had kids. At one point, my mom lived with us. It made things very cozy, perhaps too cozy.

My mom moved out for good when my son was a year and a half. It was still tight but the bonus of having limited space is that it forces you to be mindful of what you bring into the house. Every time we wanted to buy something, we’d ask ourselves: “Can we fit this in the apartment? Do we really need this?” This was before Marie Kondo started telling everyone to get rid of things that didn’t bring them “joy.” We were forced to be mindful because we simply didn’t have the space.

There’s a lot of lakes in Florida.

So when we finally bought our house in 2019, we got so much space that I said to my husband, “This house is too big.” He balked at the thought, but I felt like we didn’t necessarily need it. Over time, we got used to it and began bringing more things into the house. Hundreds of stuffies for the kids, because someone (me) couldn’t resist a Squishmallows sale at Fred Meyer. They were so adorable and my kids loved them.

More art supplies such as canvas, paints, brushes, markers, gel pens, pencils, paper, etc. began showing up in my daughter’s room because she loves to draw and create comic books. Presents we received from others for their birthdays also ended up in their rooms. Video game consoles for the garage so they’d have something to do during those godforsaken days of the pandemic. Camping gear that we used to have (and used to use) which we only took out during the summer when the kids “camped” in the garage because it was too hot upstairs. Giant bean bag chairs, lamps, tables, bookcases, shelves, desks, notebooks, stickers and my husband’s least favorite thing for the house: baskets. (I am guilty as charged).

Despite filling up the kids rooms and the rest of the house with stuff, we didn’t fill up our own bedroom. In fact, we kept it very minimal with only a large dry erase board on one side and an abstract canvas painting above our bed along with a dresser on either side. I think deep down I knew we weren’t going to stay there long term so I didn’t see the point of turning our bedroom into a haven.

Going through your things in the process of moving is like going down memory lane. It gets harder the deeper you delve into it. You discover things you haven’t used in years. You find that random kitchen utensil you thought you lost. You’re shocked to find that you have not one but five bottles of ketchup, thirty cans of soups, pumpkin puree, peaches, beans, corn and other canned goods that you don’t even eat.

Let’s not forget bags of Halloween, Valentines Day, Christmas, and Easter candies that landed in your pantry over time that you still have not finished and will not likely finish until your kids are at least eighteen years old. By then, they may turn their nose at old candies. Forced to face reality, you stand there in the kitchen area with your spouse wondering where time has gone by and feeling overwhelmed because you’re not as done as you thought you were.

I have a complicated relationship with things and always have. While my husband has more of an attachment with places, I find it much harder to let things go, perhaps because I didn’t grow up with many things. I grew up in a village and played in the dirt with other kids and we made up games using household items like chopsticks and spoons. Sometimes, when we were feeling extra creative, we would use rocks.

For the next few days (or weeks? ha), I’ll be working on letting go of more things. It’s going to be difficult, and there will likely be tears but it must be done.

What about you? Do you have complicated relationships with things like me? Or are you the ‘I can live with or without’ kind of person like my husband? I find that so much of our relationship with things has deep roots in childhood, what we were allowed to have and not have and I’m curious to hear your thoughts.

Join me on Instagram!

Once I get rid of more things and my husband stops yelling at me for wanting to keep things, I’ll be filling in on our experience in Florida. Until then, I’ve been posting snippets here and there in my Instagram reel highlights titled “Florida 2025.” Come hang out!