Packing life into boxes

Change comes with shaking off what you once loved.

It’s a strange thought to have while haggling over the price of a pen pot, toes numbing and patience waning, at a car boot sale on the A3 at 7am. But it took loading up the car with things we’d once loved, things we’d once debated over, chosen, placed and cared for, to realise how much is involved in letting go. To travel the world you don’t simply get up and leave, the debris falling carelessly around you. You have to peel it off, bit by bit, dismantling the life you’ve made. And it can hurt.

Change asks you to look at the life you have, and reject parts of it in favour of something new. To examine the environment you’ve built, the habitat you’ve curated, and start walking away. It unflinchingly asks you to make a choice.

A little wooden reindeer ornament, placed on the bookcase at Christmas time. The three wire heart baskets I loved seeing on the windowsill every time I took a shower. Books with battered covers and turned over pages from holidays, late nights and cosy evenings – sitting in the cold waiting to be sold.

I can be sentimental – I knew that some of this process would hurt. I knew that taking apart the first home we had together and streamlining our possessions to simply what we can carry on our backs would seek and uncover some cowering part of me which whispers “please, no”.

But I didn’t expect it to also feel wonderful. Freeing. As I sold a heap of well-loved summer clothes to a woman who looked thrilled to have acquired a whole new wardrobe for under £20, a hopeful spark warmed my stomach. Because it felt good. It felt nice to know that all of these things I’d once called my own would now get a second life, and make someone else feel good when they wore it, happy when they looked at it, or proud when they gave it as a present. It felt the opposite of wasteful – it felt generous and humbling to give all of our things – none of which we need – to people who would love and enjoy them more than we can now. So much better than leavings them unused in a cupboard. Change is firm and difficult – but it comes when it’s most needed, and can feel like a remedy.

After I started thinking this way, it’s gotten easier and easier. I’ve been surprised at how little, when it boils down to it, exists to root you down to one place and one house. What feels like your world comes down to boxes of trinkets, dusty dvds and half used makeup. They’re wonderful and comforting, but things are just that – things. I have a box of possessions I won’t compromise on – thoughtful gifts, letters, my toy lamb I’ve had since I was a baby – that will be staying safely in my mum and dad’s house. But apart from that, I own next to nothing any more. But I have a backpack and a whole lot of things to look forward to.

I know that one day we will have new ornaments, new baskets, new books, in a home of our own. I can’t wait for that day. But there’s a world to explore first, and so much to see.