Sort Your Stuff

My then boyfriend and I moved to Napa, California to pursue the jobs of our lives because we had both landed positions at one of the top restaurants in the world. Brent was joining the savory team, and I was joining the pastry team. We were nervous with anticipation because this would be our first move as a new couple.

When I moved to Napa from Boulder, my Dad offered me unexpected grace, even though I knew he disagreed with my decision. I was nervous about living with a boyfriend for the first time and expected to be shamed for moving in with a guy before getting married. I thought he would think I was abandoning some of our family values. I'll never forget calling my Dad to let him know I was moving across the country with Brent and living with him. I carried his expectation with me.

"Dad, you're quiet. What do you think, Dad?" I whispered, afraid of the answer.

"I mean, Sarah, this isn't exactly what any father wants to hear. But I trust you, and if this ends up being a mistake, you'll learn from it."

I exhaled. Coming from a very strict conservative town, my Dad's grace meant the world. He didn't shut me out but told me he'd be there to pick up the pieces if this didn't work out with Brent.

I can imagine that if I had a daughter and she told me she was moving in with a guy after eight months of dating, I would have put her in a car and told her she was coming home. My Dad's trust in me and grace helped me learn to trust my gut. It was something that would be forever useful. He helped me learn at that moment that the weight wasn't in the decision itself but in the learnings. Maybe that's the grace we can offer people when we disagree with a decision. The crux of our hope is in the learnings, not the action. I learned from my family that grace is more important than defending being "right." Maybe the answer is accepting the tension with grace. But more importantly, maybe my Dad's or my town's expectations of me weren't meant for me to carry. After all, they were their expectations, not mine.

I had walked out of my apartment in Boulder, Colorado with Brent. The sun felt incredible on my face as I walked barefoot on the warm sidewalk. I had asked him if he wanted me to join him to go pick up the U-Haul. He casually said, "no." We were in the bliss of realizing our relationship was about to go to a different level. I was about to walk back inside when I pointed to his car and asked, "Where is the U-Haul going to attach the hitch?" Everything fell apart from there. We had ordered a U-Haul with no place to attach it to the car. I grabbed my shoes and got in the car with Brent. We had less than 24 hours to figure out how we were going to move all our things.

We tried everything. U-Haul couldn't add a hitch attachment for another two weeks, and it was too late to get a moving truck. Not to mention, we were two broke cooks surviving on $12 an hour. After driving to three mechanics to see if any of them had a hitch attachment, with no luck, we sat on the curb in a Costco parking lot, sulking. We had two options. One, ditch all of our things and just fit what we could in the car. Or two, get a giant U-Haul truck and tow Brent's car. After calculating the cost of option two, Brent and I surrendered to option one.

We had already packed all of our things in boxes, and he had brought his boxes to my apartment. My poor roommates had to deal with Brent and me creating a giant mess in our living room. Piles of "keep" and "donate" were everywhere. By this point, it was dinnertime, and we were starving and tired, but we needed to leave the next morning early to make it to our jobs on time. As any cook would in a high-stress moment, we pushed through. I did not like inviting Brent into questions about keeping items or donating them. I was not about to give up my desk, but Brent was adamant it was not going to fit in the car. Some people consider purging items cathartic; I am not one of those people. I had a flashback as I was getting rid of most of my belongings. I had been through something similar before.

Our family home burned down when I was in college due to a gas leak. I rushed home from college when I heard the news. I was at school in Chicago, only an hour's drive away. I watched as firefighters smashed the windows of our home. When things had calmed down, they let us walk through what was left. We were directed to only grab sentimental items we wanted because insurance was going to replace the rest. "What would you take?" played like a broken record in my head. I ended up taking jewelry my grandparents had given me. Most of my photos were damaged by the smoke. In an instant, my childhood items were gone. I was lucky enough to have my clothes at college. My younger sister, my Mom, and my Dad were not so fortunate. I had learned after that fire that stuff was just stuff, and it could be gone in a second. More importantly, though, no one was hurt in the fire. I'm grateful my family was able to get in a car that day. We drove to find underwear and toothbrushes and stayed at a nearby hotel. No luggage in tow.

I was telling this story to Brent as we were willingly throwing things into the donate pile. I had told myself I had learned the lesson that stuff is just stuff. But when it came down to parting with items, I wasn't in a great mood. I repeated "stuff is just stuff" in my head, but my thoughts weren't aligning with how I was feeling about letting go of all the things I had accumulated. I was grateful for Brent's laughter as we went through each pile. He was trying to be optimistic about everything, knowing that we could buy new items if needed. His laugh and smile pulled me from the fire into the present moment. We would laugh when one of us would say "oh!!!!!!" because we knew it was a sentimental item that may have to go into the donate pile. We sounded like nostalgic hypocrites. I'd tell him he needed to part with something, and then I wouldn't want to part with something of my own. And vice versa. We only had one car to fit stuff into, and that was our consistent reminder. Looking back, after now being married to him, I'm just grateful we both got in that car together. He's my home, not the "things."

The next morning, we set off to California. To our surprise, our apartment in Napa fell through on the drive. After dealing with shedding most of our belongings, all we could do was laugh at this point. Brent spent the last 8-hours of the drive on the phone, trying to find us a place to live. By some miracle, he found a place. The landlord said we couldn't move in until the next morning, so Brent's Dad got us a hotel room for the night. Brent and I sunk into the bed. Our bodies were so tired we fell asleep within seconds of melting into the sheets.

The following morning, grateful not to be homeless, we moved into an apartment we had never seen. To our surprise, the place was exactly what we needed. Brent's Dad helped us run the usual errands to Home Depot to get the staples - toilet paper, a vacuum, a garbage can, etc. He then left to allow us time to get comfortable. After all, it would be just us alone now.

Sometimes we go through life thinking we need to physically and mentally carry everything. Like in a move, you learn faster than you'd like to that you have more "baggage" than you thought and/or need. When we hold tight to things that, at the end of the day, are just "stuff," we realize we've been spending most of our energy holding onto things that don't give us life in return. When you're moving forward in life, whether it's from a breakup, divorce, or heartache, sort your stuff. If anything I've learned, it's not a one and done deal. It's something to revisit every day. Sort your stuff and figure out what's yours to carry.