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If we live long enough, we get to the point that we have to downsize. Depending on the size of the home we lived in before we downsized and how often we moved before we lived there, it is not a fun experience. We have to wade through all our worldly possessions and decide which to keep and which to get rid of. The more we clear away, the happier our children will be later on.
Accept the help you need for your this major event. It is not easy selling a home where you lived for many years and clearing out your things.
If you are like me, you don’t have good spacial awareness and tend to be very optimistic about how many things will fit into a given amount of space. (But you may not be like me at all in that way.) It is also strange how often, when called on to get rid of all these things, you suddenly feel very attached to them. During our last move, a couple of my girls helped me. One daughter came while I was very busy getting the house ready to move into and she asked about general things I wanted/didn’t want. Then she went through a lot of things.and got rid of many of the things that had survived our biggest move and shouldn’t have. I was too tired to fight and wanted to just be done and settled in the new smaller house. She packed some questionable items in boxes to be gotten rid of in a year if I didn’t need them.
Another daughter came a few weeks after the move and helped me with paper. We threw out lots and lots of paper taking many, many pounds to the shredder. She got me organized with files and on the computer in ways that were really helpful and simple. I was amazed how helpful it was to put all the businesses, doctors, friends I use along with their addresses in my contacts on the phone. That way, when I need to find them, I can, Everything is right there on the phone and I don’t have to look and find addresses for the GPS that connects to the car I now have. For me, paper is one of the areas I have an awful time with. This has helped me a lot. If I used her method as carefully as I should, it would work even better for me. But it is still helpful for me to go back to when I start getting behind.
It is nice to know that there are people who can help you get organized in the areas where you need help. If you need help like I do, you may need someone to talk you through what areas you need help with. Getting organized is a process that involves many areas and although you may feel very disorganized, it may simply be that you feel overwhelmed and only one or two areas are actually disorganized. Each of us has a way that works best for our brains. A method that works well for one person may not work well at all for another due to many factors including how much space you have. So take some time, get the help you need to figure out what will work out best for you to maintain the order you need to function well. I am fortunate to have some children that can ask good questions when I am overwhelmed, that give me insight into where I need help or where my actual problem is.
Once you move, regular purging of your things is also needed so you don’t get overloaded with too many things you don’t use.
A large part of managing your things is going to include purging, on a regular basis, the things you don’t use and either giving them away, selling them or throwing them away. It does no good to have your closets overflowing with things you don’t use. You might as well get rid of them in the most effective way you can.
There is sadness associated with this move as with any move. It is later in your life. You are officially old and much closer to the end of your life than you ever have been.
As you face the future ahead of you, you realize you have lived most of your life here on earth. The years to come will be less than the ones you have lived so far. There is uncertainty ahead. You don’t know what is to come. But God is still with you. He will care for you as He has in the past. He will provide for you as He has in the past. You can move ahead without fear or worry as you literally move into the valley of the shadow of death for yourself, often your spouse, and many of your friends as well. Beyond this valley is the glory of heaven if you are a child of God. (For clarity on what this is, check out this post.)
Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?
And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life?But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.
Matthew 6:25-27, 33 ESV
