Weeding and Purging

By: Melanie


Like most people, I gauge the success of my packing progress by the number of boxes that have been packed, taped and labelled. Bigger pile, more progress. So, imagine my dismay when the box count started to slow in recent days. Looking around our apartment, four weeks before we move out, it has been getting harder and harder to find things to box up. First of all, there's all the stuff we're going to need in the next four weeks. Then, there's all the stuff we're giving away but that won't get picked up until a couple of days before we leave, and I don't want to waste precious boxes on those until I know I have enough to spare. And, of course, there's the logistics of our multi-city move. We're leaving Brooklyn, but we'll be dropping most of our stuff at a storage facility in a city that we won't be living in for two months and driving to another city where we'll be living in the interim. Trying to figure out what we'll need for that couple of months and separating it from the rest of our worldly goods has been challenging. But, I signed up for a challenge, didn't I? So I press on.

Enter the weeding and purging phase of our packing. Okay, yes, I was supposed to do this before a single box was filled. But who can resist that initial thrill of packing that involves pulling random, unnecessary items off of shelves and throwing them into the first box, symbolizing the giant leap into the abyss of THE MOVE? I know I can't. Organized, methodical packing be damned. I needed that first box. And after the first box, things ticked along pretty nicely until around Box 12, when I hit the wall. And started weeding. I went through our papers. I went through my clothes. I went through Elle's clothes. Jeff went through his clothes. The shoes. Oh, the shoes. Donation bags were filled. Trash bags were filled. Dust bunnies borne of months of wardrobe neglect were collected. We purged.

And here we are, with a total box count of 15, but with far, far fewer belongings that are yet to be packed.  There are exactly 12 more packing days in my original plan, with an extra 6 days to work with if things go terribly awry. But I would much rather spend those 6 days wandering around New York, saying our goodbyes and doing it all one last time, so I will put those 12 days to good use.