Cummings and Goings

The one where we start packing.

Moving overseas sounds glamorous until you’re standing in your living room asking yourself life’s toughest questions:

Where will all my crap go?

You know… the important stuff.

Like my purses.

Some are going into storage. Some are headed to Korea in the shipping container. A select few have earned the coveted carry-on status. And somehow, despite owning more purses than any one person reasonably needs, I’m convinced I’ll pack the wrong one and spend the next month carrying my passport around in a reusable grocery bag.

Thankfully, Lee’s engineering brain had us covered. While I was emotionally attached to every random kitchen gadget we’d owned since 2015, he created a three-color sticky note system to label every single item.

Green. Shipping container.

Blue Air freight.

Red. Storage.

Or… whatever the colors were. I stopped paying attention after purse number twelve. The important thing is that he had a system, and I had vibes.

After 11 years in this house, we’ve accumulated an unbelievable amount of… stuff. Crap. Treasures. Things we forgot we owned until a mover picked them up and asked, “Where does this go?”

The answer was usually one of four places:

• Storage
• Shipping container
• Air freight
• The curb for bulk trash day

Simple enough, right?

Except the air freight will arrive in about a month. The shipping container won’t show up for a few months. And storage… well… we’ll see you in a year and a half.

So every decision became a game.

“Will I need this before October?”

“Can I survive without my favorite coffee mug?”

“How many sweatshirts does one person need in August?”

“Do I really need this much maroon clothing?” (The answer is obviously yes.)

The professional movers will pack our entire house in three days while we stand here making what feels like life-altering decisions every 30 seconds.

Air freight? “Yes, I need that.”

Shipping container? “Future Katy can deal with it.”

Storage? “Good luck finding it in 18 months.”

Meanwhile, Lee was confidently sticking colored labels on boxes like he was directing air traffic, and I was wandering around the house asking if my hairdryer was considered an emergency item.

It’s basically a real-life version of Let’s Make a Deal, except instead of choosing Door #1 or Door #2, you’re deciding whether you’ll miss your air fryer more than your Christmas decorations.

I’m almost certain we put in storage things we’ll desperately need next week. I’m equally certain we paid to ship things across the Pacific that we’ll completely forget we own until we unpack in 2028.

Such is the adventure.

If nothing else, this move has taught me two things:

1. We own way too much stuff.
2. I still don’t know which purse I packed my favorite lip gloss in.