Downsizing is the new bling

It's been a flurry of a whirlwind of a clusteryuck of activity, but twelve days after putting our home on the market we've accepted an offer.

We got a teeny tiny bit more than we were asking, which we looooooooooove. More would have been fabulous, but less would not have been okay. I'm thrilled to be where we are, particularly in this market.

So now we being the process of sifting through the things that have filled this 3,700 square foot home. We are deciding what to toss/give away/sell, and what we will be taking with us to our new 2,100 square foot home. We are renting the house from friends who are also downsizing, in their case to an apartment in Seattle.

When I was twenty-seven, I traveled for several months around Europe, carrying everything I needed in a backpack. In the months leading up to that, I enjoyed the process of figuring out what I would need, and how I was going to fit everything into one bag I'd lug around on my back. I packed and unpacked that bag literally dozens of times, folding and rolling and organizing and weighing and eliminating and adding stuff until I felt I had it just right (I swear that experience is why I was good at Tetris years later). Interestingly, as I traveled some of those belongings were lost or stolen, and I found I didn't need as much as I had thought. I went home with less than I'd taken (apart from a couple of little souvenirs). I learned that possessions are far overrated; we can get by with far less than we think we need.

Now, many years later I'm doing it all over again, but instead of going from an apartment to a backpack I'm moving from a relatively big house into a more modest one.

A modest home that is more than enough for us. We don't NEED this huge of a home; in fact, it is probably a detriment in many ways. We have rooms that go unused for days at a time. Sure, the home is gorgeous, and those extra rooms look good, but there have been times when I've felt embarrassed at my home's excess, its conspicuousness, its extravagance. Once one of my brothers-in-law walked into our home for the first time and exclaimed, "This is a palace!" An overstatement for sure, but still. It's not me. Not us.

I'm looking forward to living in a home that is "cozy." It will be nice to have the four of us together more often because there aren't a bunch of rooms to which we can each scatter. We can all loll about the family room reading instead of lounging on separate sofas in separate rooms, we can all agree on ONE program that we ALL like, instead of retreating to different corners and watching our selections alone, we can come up with entertainment the whole family will enjoy together since we're going to be tripping over each other anyway.

Downsizing is the new bling, baby. At least for us.