After Lou’s big technology deal crashed and burned, we had to get real. It was time to face the facts.
We couldn’t keep doing this anymore. We couldn’t keep trying to close little deals to pay our rent, and quite frankly, we simply couldn’t afford the rent we were paying in the first place. So we contacted our landlord, and worked out a plan for us to leverage our deposit, pack up our things, and move out.
Thankfully, our landlord really liked us, and he said he was sad to see us go. (You know his grout has never been cleaner.) But it’s very embarrassing to have to admit that you can’t honor your lease agreement, and so ending things this way left me with such a sense of failure and shame.
So to cope with my feelings, I started to purge our house. The month before we moved out, I started stripping our closets, drawers, and cupboards of anything I knew we could easily live without. I took out huge Hefty bags of junk I’d saved in the office closet, and I burned out the motor on our tiny paper shredder destroying ancient paperwork I’m not even sure why I kept. I’ve never been a packrat, so you’d think this would’ve been simple for me.
But I had to have a few serious conversations with myself about some of the stuff I was holding on to:
“Why do you still have this pair of Dior sandals? They feel like barbed wire cutting into your feet — and you know that’s why you never wear them!”
“The strappy Jimmy Choos you bought two seasons ago don’t go with your new life. Honestly. You have to be practical now, Sonja, and practical girls don’t wear strappy, four-inch Jimmy Choos.”
“Erg. This Armani skirt makes you look very wide and super short. Why have you kept a skirt that looks so terrible on you? Is it just because it was expensive? Get over yourself.”
Aside from ridding myself of the things I never wore — but coveted nonetheless — the purging process was super cathartic for me because I sensed that we couldn’t keep up with our overhead or my former fashion wants for much longer. (Plus, I made a lot of money by selling my clothing as “designer seconds” – which only made me feel more motivated to purge everything in my closet!)
Meanwhile, Lou was in contact with some of his old leaders from one of the enormously successful MLM companies that he owned back in the1990s. Two of the guys — who were very successful in one of Lou’s early ventures — had started a new anti-aging skincare company that was really taking off. Lou spoke to one of the guys and explained our current situation, and offered to jump in to add to the company’s momentum.
The old friend was happy to have Lou’s support, and so he signed up Lou as a distributor; then, he fronted Lou a huge case of the product, and gave us a bonus package so we could afford to rent a car, and hit the road to start peddling the business. With this financial infusion, we also rented a storage unit in Sarasota.
Then. We started the daunting task of packing up all of our remaining stuff.
I tried to be logical about how I packed things. We were basically taking off on a road trip with no planned return. So I assumed that our storage unit would represent our only true link to our life in Sarasota. And, I figured at some point, we’d need to access important paperwork and such on the fly. But when you use the “do-it-yourself” moving model, things can get pretty chaotic pretty darn fast.
When some of our helpful friends arrived to load our U-Haul, it started to look like the Beverly Hillbilly moving team was working for us. I remember coming out to the driveway to see how things were going, and Lou and one of his closest friends were trying to bungee cord our dining room chairs to the back the U-Haul. Lou explained to me that he was trying to get it all in one trip. Clearly. But at the time, we still had a “two trip” life…
Ugh.
But by that point, we were all so tired that I pretty much had to be OK with a very risky trip to the storage unit with our very expensive bamboo chairs hitched to the back of the truck. The stress was really forcing me to choose my battles.
Which brings me back to our enormous, manly furniture. (Remember? That Bad Penny?)
You already know how “unattached” I was to our furnishing. But I had other reasons for wanting to let things go now. We simply didn’t have room for it! Plus, when you’re wired like I am — and your safe little home environment is completely gone — it’s just nicer and easier to give stuff away instead of forcing it into a storage unit that you might not be able to afford for very long.
Scarcity and fear are my two primary default settings, and so at that time, I found myself worrying about how far this generous infusion Lou’s friend gave us would take us. I didn’t want to knowingly put myself in a situation that I knew we couldn’t afford ever again.
And for me, letting go of our things felt safer, more honest, and just plain freer to me.
But Lou fought hard to keep every piece of furniture that we could fit into that messy 20 x 20 storage unit. I, on the other hand, would secretly celebrate when the “hillbilly moving strategy” forced another furniture edit.
I ended up giving our guest bedroom furniture to the building manager at our condo, who needed it for a family at his church — which I hoped would make Lou feel generous and magnanimous. (I tried, but pandering is easy to spot in my personality. Darn.)
Then we gave our super awesome deck furniture to one of Lou’s best friends — which felt like keeping it “in the family.” (For Lou? Not so much.)
I did attempt to sell a few of our nicer things at this fancy consignment shop, but it was taking way too long to make a sale. And at that point in my life, I needed to streamline our things immediately, and so I was willing to get rid of everything we had just so we could get out of Sarasota. I did try to find good homes for whatever couldn’t fit in the storage unit. But there was only so much I could honestly do.
Clearly, I was ready to jerk that wheel and course correct, and there was no room for furniture in my plans.
I fully admit that I was brutal about the edits and purges I made when it came to our things. But looking back on it now, I think my relationship with “my stuff” was permanently altered the day we found out we were wiped out.
I came to an instant understanding that it’s a hassle to have things — especially nice things — because you have worry about them so much. But to be fair, by the time we were moving out of our condo, Lou’s furniture had already been through five local moves — which dinged up a few of the really expensive pieces — and even our soft pieces were looking a bit tatty if you looked closely. But it was all we had left of our former life, and Lou wanted to hold on to it, while I wanted to let it all go.
I didn’t want anything anymore. Or ever again.
By the time we rolled the gate down on our storage unit, Lou offered up the comment of the day: “That unit is so full you couldn’t fit a fart in there.”
