Decisions About My Place…

In about ten days, I’ll be giving my notice on my apartment out here in Chilliwack. Without a doubt, it’s probably the the nicest place I’ve ever lived in. High ceilings. Crown mouldings. Gas fireplace. Air conditioning. Patio. Hardwood floors. Definitely pretty posh, despite being in the middle of farmland here.

I’ve been asked a few times if it’s hard to give this apartment up. Truthfully, not really. Having gone to university for eight years and stayed in university dorms for five of them, you get pretty used to living light and moving in and out of random places. In fact, I remember literally hauling boxes down the road while moving between two dorm rooms only a few blocks apart at UBC.

I also don’t think brick and mortar is what makes a home. Sure, having a nice place with hardwood floors and stainless steel appliances is kind of chic and modern, but I actually found my place to be a bit too open and spacious for my liking, often making it feel a bit cold. In fact, I was visiting a place half the size a while ago with everything crammed really tight, and it felt a lot more cozy than the setup I have here. So no, I’m not really sad to see it go (but I will miss lazy nights in front of the fire in my flannel pants).

I’ve been debating keeping all my furniture or selling most of it off. I was leaning towards keeping a lot of it, but a few people I’ve talk to seem to think I should sell it all. I’ve spent a lot of time weighing the pros and cons in my head, but the reality is that I don’t really want to pay the huge fees associated with storing it, and have no idea where I’m going to end up in six month’s time – it’s possible none of this furniture would even look right in whatever place I find down the road.

So right now I’m leaning towards selling it all. And if that happens, I’ll probably sell a lot of stuff I’ve been storing needlessly, including some of my guitar stuff and random computer items. I have about $5,000 worth of university books I’ve been hauling between apartments for the last decade, and I’m probably going to simply haul the entire lot down to the local library and make a donation with the hope some kids will benefit from them all some day.

In fact, part of me wants to try and get my whole life down to 10 or 15 boxes if possible, which would be a rather major undertaking considering I somehow filled a 12 or 15 foot truck moving to Chilliwack. But, I definitely think it would be possible given that I have about two month’s to do it.

I also noticed on the weekend that my passport expires in April, which technically means I shouldn’t be traveling anywhere after October. Since I have a small trip planned at the beginning of November, I’ve started frantically filling out paperwork to hopefully get a new one before then.

So, passport renewal, and then notice on my apartment. Once that is done, I’ll have two months to unload everything and then I’ll basically be living out of backpack for the next six months.