Over and Over.....Again and Again

One move, two move, three move four....

Lord, I hope there won't be any more!

 

It's been a way of life. Before I could walk - and maybe talk - it was off by military sea transport to Hawaii. It went on and on - moving eight times up to high school graduation. It went on after I left home on my own and has continued up to now. I guess it will end only on my one way trip from a funeral home someday.

 

 

I presume my first clue about the Air Force life was when I was assigned to the 3499th Mobile Training Wing. I should have known what I was heading into when I saw the word Mobile. After an ill-fated move by military air that took me to almost a dozen bases in a week, put me on record of AWOL (absent without leave, a definite Air Force no-no), and I complete my move by train. I became convinced that I needed a car.  It became even more of a challenge when I got married and the car became transport AND storage.  We loaded the trunk and back seat with most everything we owned, including a seven inch black and white bare-bones Teletone television set. By bare bones, I mean just that - it was a chassis and picture tube but no cabinet. That's the way lived until our

mobile home era.

 

In the trailers we began to amass things and when we moved everything went into the trailer, often including concrete blocks used to support the trailer when we got to our destination

 

Next came the house decades. That meant more souvenirs and possessions and they moved us (or we moved them) even as we entered the ministry years. We've completed 60 years together and that meant more and more stuff and now, here we are moving out of our home of 13 years (that includes two or three moves in and out of this house.

 

The picture tells my story. We know that our next domicile will have very living space - or better said, limited space for stuff. This has produced a major challenge: How does one decide what can go and what has to stay? Beyond that, what do we do with stuff headed for treasure heaven. 

 

I guess I am the problem. There's always the tension involved in making a choice what goes with us and what is otherwise disposed on. It is commonly described as sorting treasure from trash and more specifically, What IS treasure amd what is trash. Making that worse, one person's treasure is apt to be another's trash. I guess I have been the one to keep stuff.  You know what I mean - I keep stuff sometimes like forever.  Old electrical and electronic cables. Coffee cans of unsorted screws and hardware. Newspaper articles I wrote forty-five years ago. Pictures almost that old. And old magazines.

 

How does one overcome this problem?  I find that a wife, in many ways, knows how to handle this dilemma. She can select more freely. And when it comes to my stuff, there is always 'her look'.  She wisely will pronounce the truth statement: "there's not going to be room for everything" and give 'that look."

The husband responds, "But I need that - I've got some projects in mind." 

Silence. More silence - and then -----the look. It's taken me a lot of years but I have learned to listen to her - and be aware of the 'look'

 

I'll let you know in June how we (and our stuff) have survived the move.