Let's Go, Jane!

I’m down to my last six days of anchored living. I have six pickups scheduled today from Facebook. Having sold most of the larger items, I’m now giving things away through a local free stuff group. The recipients of free stuff are so much easier to deal with than the buyers. The buyers schedule pickups several days in advance and then don’t show and don’t text. The free people are like, “I can be there in 15 minutes.” If I had more time, I could probably sell a few more things. But time is one thing I do not have.

There are a handful of items that I’m having trouble parting with. My older son’s first pair of shoes. A ceramic cookie jar with a scorpion on the lid that my younger son made in art class. A glass figurine of a cat that belonged to my grandmother. A voice in my head says, “just take a picture and release them” but it’s not that easy. I can always store things for now, and then decide in the spring if I want to continue storing them while I’m in my van. I’m just surprised by how hard it is to part with them.

My younger son will move in with his dad on Tuesday, where he will stay until he leaves for college. I have loved this two year period of living in the apartment, just the two of us. What a special time. I will have the fondest memories of it. It’s sad that this period is coming to an end, but I’m also so grateful that it happened at all. When do you ever get that much one-on-one time with one of your kids? We’ve gotten very close.

It remains to be seen how often we will stay in touch once we are no longer living together. We went to Boston for a college orientation this week and some of the moms were talking about how they were going to start a Snapchat streak or a private Instagram page where their child was expected to post daily. Proof of life, they called it. I think we will let our communication develop more organically.

A week from tomorrow I will fly to London and begin my solo international adventures. I trust that I will have more interesting things to write about then. For now, I am solely focused on emptying this entire apartment in the time I have remaining. It’s not an easy task, but it will feel so good once it’s done!