The Great Merger

As you might know, Chris and I just moved in together. I have had a lot of time off work recently, which was needed in and of itself, but it's also helped to make the move go smoother. We still have to finish up cleaning out the old place to get the deposit back (hopefully) and we have until tomorrow. I should be over there right now but I'm too excited to a) have had the cable guy install internet here this morning, & b) actually have some internet TIME while not at work or on a schedule. :)

It's so interesting to merge two houses full of furniture and belongings together. I feel like I suddenly have a huge DVD library. Chris found several old photo albums of his that I got to look through and relive this little piece of him and his family that I had never seen. I showed Chris the first lock of Chelsea's hair that I cut off in her first hair cut and the red plastic welfare card I had 17 years ago when I first applied for AFDC with a new baby and no job or insurance on her. There are so many fractions of our lives held within the things in our closets and garages under that which we use more frequently

Part of me (the part who's mother is a pack rat of the worst kind - sorry mom but you know it's true) wants to purge everything! Simplify, simplify, simplify! That part wants to rid the house of all that is unnecessary. If it doesn't fall within the two categories of Form or Function then why keep it around?

I think on some level it's clinging to the past. Some of it is obligation. Maybe to foster a sense of personal history or to look back and remember. When I was cleaning out my closet there against the wall was a little white dress with long sashes and beaded smocking on the chest. It wouldn't fit anyone I know but it's not only a dress that was hand made by my aunt Becky for her daughter, it's the dress Chelsea received her first communion in. Do I toss it in the goodwill pile to satisfy my sense of order and simplicity? What am I keeping it for anyway? Why do I have a 12 year old lock of my daughter's hair, or and unfinished quilt that my grandmother was making for me before she died, or a heavy box full of crystals my family and I "mined" at the crystal mine in Hot Springs Arkansas during the family reunion in 2003. What would I run into a fire to save if the place was burning down? Nothing. It's all just stuff that I box up and move with me every time I move. And every once in a while I can show these things to someone who doesn't know their history or their value and get a little fraction of my past back for a second, just to share that part of myself, my belongings.

So our walls will be covered in pictures of our family to tell our stories. That and James Bond movie poster prints (which I secretly kinda love the idea of.) We'll have two tv's that we don't know what to do with, two cork screws and cutting boards and sets of dishes and tea kettles and spice racks and dresser drawers and desks and couches and old photos and dogs. (Fortunately Honey and Stretch love each other and get along well.) We'll have to sift through the stuff, the belongings, to decide what belongs and what does not. We have to determine the value of our things and explain the value to each other hopeful that they'll see the value too.

There will be a lot we can sell. Our beautiful empty new garage where we parked for about a day is already starting to fill up and only one car can park there now. And we have only scratched the surface of Chris's house. We've given ourselves the summer to have his house empty, decide on a house plan and have a builder hired for the project. That's really not that much time sitting here on May 30th. I'm really not one for keeping a whole lot but I do have things I can and will get rid of. I just had to be out of my apartment and theres some stuff I would like to see if I can sell or if my family might want.

As I sit here with boxes piled up around me and the knowledge that more boxes will be arriving daily until the Wildwood house is empty I have to admit a sense of satisfaction. It takes a huge amount of effort to hoist all your belongings onto your back and move them to a new location. In the unpacking will come more of decisions about what to keep, surprises about what's actually there that had been long forgotten, and memories of our lives-past to share with each other.
So on that note I make my promise not to question or judge any of the belongings to cross the threshold of the merged house and to keep myself open to learning what has value to Chris and add that to the combined value of us as a couple.

LOVE