"Never underestimate how hard it is to leave the dock" is the advice we'd gotten from a million web pages and magazine articles. Forget leaving the dock -- just getting to the dock is clearly harder than anticipated!
The first yard sales we had, almost two years ago, were easy; we just sold the things we hadn't used in years, that had been sitting in our storage shed. As we got closer to our target date, though, we sold off more and more. For the last two weeks, our beds have been Therma-rests, our dinner table an overturned cardboard box. I got weepy and sentimental at odd moments. But once we packed our remaining possessions into our VW camper van and left Boulder behind, everything seemed easier.
The whole process of lightening up our possessions has lightened up our hearts as well. We had wrestled with this for some time, while planning: do we rent out our house and store our stuff while we sail, so if we decide to return sooner rather than later, we still have our "old life"? Or do we sell everything but our keepsakes, figuring that we'd "start over" no matter what, whether on the water or on land? We opted for the latter, and so far it seems a good choice; Boulder was a great place to live, but if we "settle down" again we'd just as soon try another place. And getting rid of possessions has been eye-opening. No way am I ever going to own so much stuff again!
Right now we're hanging out at Britt's parents' ranch in southern Colorado, trying to buy a small storage shed for our remaining possessions (other than what we're taking with us). And then we need to sort through them all; we started out putting things neatly in boxes, numbered and labeled, but by the time we hit the road we were tossing things wherever they'd fit.
Our cats are slowly getting the hang of this ranch life thing. They've been cautiously exploring their new territory.
I think it was a good idea to stop here for a while on our way to our boat. We come here a few times a year, for Christmas and on the way to or from our trips to the Utah desert, so it's familiar and relaxing. It doesn't even matter that we don't have a "back home" to go to.
Plus, we have internet access here! What a come-down, though, to go from T1 or better at work, plus ISDN at home, to a modem on a rural phone line that crackles and spits us off periodically. Oh, well -- I suppose we should consider this good practice for the future. But oh, it hurts!