Category: downsizeFTW

We moved last week…

(and over the weekend, and during this whole week, and again this weekend)

(it’s a long story)

…and because I am cheap about weird things, I didn’t want to spend a fortune on a tape gun I’d only use once.

(like maybe twenty bucks?)

(see what I mean about weird things?)

It seemed rational at the time because I hadn’t moved in almost 9 years, and why else would I need a tape gun??

So I packed a bazillion boxes by tearing the packing tape with my teeth. Bryan used a pair of scissors, but I didn’t have time for silly accessories to slow me down. I packed WAY more boxes than he did.

At any rate, as I’m winding down the packing-palooza and considering all the packing tape I’ve gotten stuck in my teeth, I was reminded of this very untimely Death by Cheap Envelope Glue, and it had me a little worried.

Is packing tape toxic??

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We sign a lease today – our first lease in ten-ish years. We committed to living here after spending about fifteen minutes inside the condo, which is about how long I spent in my house before deciding to buy it.

Sometimes you just know.

Or at the very least, you don’t want The One to get away.

So in August we move from a home we own to a condo we’re renting, and we’re paying more money to live in less space.

The property manager was very curious about this. “Wait, you own your house?” she asked, looking at my rental application. Under “current landlord” I’d put “me!” and a smiley face.

If I’m going to do something crazy, I might as well use emoticons.

“Why?”

All she said was why. Not Why are you moving, or Why are you renting, or Why are you doing this all bass ackwards?

The way she asked, Why? was shorthand for, What the hell?

Okay not really. She was super nice and most of this conversation took place in my head, but she did ask why we were moving.

“Because we want to live in the city,” I answered. And she seemed content with that.

Here you can observe the Zugs in our natural habitat.

I am sitting in my favorite chair, updating my grocery list. I have just finished folding the laundry, and the shirts I need to iron have been tossed carelessly over the back of the chair. The kids are playing in the fort they made where they each say no one is allowed yet they are always in there together.

When this much fun can be accomplished in nine square feet, who needs 2,200?

For the past several months I have taken car loads of treasures to the Goodwill for someone else to enjoy – things I’ve been hanging on to just in case. I’ve dumped hundreds of old magazines in the recycling bin and given bags of clothing to friends.

Almost a year ago we moved our bedrooms down to the main floor from upstairs, and for months I never even went up there. With the exception of my office and the laundry room, we’ve basically been living in a 925 square foot space.

So when I stepped into a friend’s loft apartment in Pioneer Square the other night – a loft that was spacious and open and felt bigger than my 925 square feet of divided rooms – I knew right then that we could do this.

Well, maybe not this, as in a loft apartment in Pioneer Square, but we could definitely downsize.

So this is what we are working toward – living with less so we can do more.

“we’re stepping through the door / we’re shooting from the heart / but if we get it wrong / they’ll feed us to the sharks” – Starsailor, Shark Food

In the movie of my life (where I am played by Ellen Page), this song will underscore the climactic visual montage where scenes are cutting into each other and someone is running in slow motion – or crying in slow motion, or shaking a fist at the sky in slow motion – and you know two story lines are about to collide or something is about to explode and you’re on the edge of your seat holding your pee because you don’t want to miss it when —

But seriously. I’ve been playing this song all day.

I know I can be dramatic, but the Zugs are on the cusp of something big. I don’t know what it is exactly, but I do in general, and for the first time in my life I’m okay with not knowing all the details or whether it will all blow up.

Because it could all blow up.

If we get it wrong, they’ll feed us to the sharks.

And we will be glorious shark food.

But here is what we do know:

• we don’t need all this stuff
• we don’t need all this space
• we like to make cool shit

I’ve been walking around in a fist-pumping, barbaric yawp-ing, let’s-do-this-thing kinda mood for awhile, now, but don’t ask me why, or what’s up, or what’s happening because I have no freakin idea.

Yet.

But there is a door God is calling us to step through, and so we step – even though we don’t exactly know what’s on the other side.

I’ve never been an adrenaline junkie, but when I listen to the building momentum of this song, and I imagine all the possibilities in front of us, and embrace the likelihood of failure – I have to admit it makes me feel a little tingly.