Shedding the Packrat

Today I scheduled our pack-out: October 14th. This knowledge caused us great happiness and anxiety at the same time. While it is fantastic to have real dates before us after such a long, uncertain wait for the job offer from State, the reality that we have to pare down our belongings looms large. Really, its a kind of mild panic. I ask myself: "what if I need the copy of my thesis printed on acid-free archive paper?" GONE! Those letters from friends in high school? GONE! Anything of value we are giving away on Freecycle New Haven.

State does allow up to 18,000 pounds of "stuff" to be stored in what I can only imagine is a Indiana-Jones-style warehouse somewhere in Maryland. You can usually take about 7,200 pounds of that with you to each post. However, you only get access to your "stuff" each time you change post. So really, am I taking the ceramic pig I picked up in Chicago to India or Brazil or wherever we end up? No! Do I really want to put it in storage for 20 years? No! So its GONE!

The picture is our coffee table covered in random things that we can't quite bring ourselves to throw out yet. Jack, the chocolate lab, appears undaunted. All he cares is that we remember his food.

I think our pack out is a little early because my brother is about to welcome his first child to the world. We're heading to Buffalo in our Audi Allroad station wagon for a few days to give him some needed support and love, before our final destination near the Foreign Service Institute in Virginia. State only covers housing two days before the start of class, so most people pack out a little later, I assume.