Everything Goes to Move Aboard a Boat

When you decided to move aboard a boat without putting anything in storage, parting with your stuff can be an emotional experience.

In about an hour, my bedroom furniture is going to leave my apartment. I feel sad about that. I love that furniture. Boxing up the drapes that I spent time picking out. Taking down the framed photos that I shot on vacation. Unplugging the lamps that shone on me as I cultivated my meditation practice. All of these things that I’ve assigned some meaning to are about to exit my life. And I’ll never see them again.

It makes me feel especially nostalgic for my old house in Lewisville, where all of these things came into my life. A place I left, happily, a year ago.

To Move Aboard a Boat, We Ended Up Gifting A Lot of Our Stuff

Pretty things…pretty things. I already gave most of my meditation shrine to my spiritual consigliere. The jeweled box where I stored my mala. The candles and sage. I’ve kept the singing bowls, the mala that was gifted to me when I finished my 500-hour yoga teacher training, and my little Lakshmi statue. She reminds me to be grateful. She reminds me that abundance has always flowed through me and that I don’t have to cling to any of it. That it’s okay to let go. More is on its way.

I gave all of the artwork that decorated my home to my girlfriends. I specifically chose a woman for each piece. A woman that I thought would appreciate those prints as much as I do. I wanted those pieces to be loved. As if they were animals I was finding new homes for. (We’re taking the dog). It’s so weird to me how we anthropomorphize things. Why do we do that? Oh, well. I hope those inanimate objects are happy.

The last week, we also invited friends via Facebook to come and take whatever they wanted out of our apartment for $100. That worked out pretty well for the last bits of furniture and home goods.

Goodbye, Quan Yin

My mindfulness practice comes in especially handy in these moments when my heart threatens to break. I’m about to give away a photo of a Quan Yin statue I took at the Amitabha Stupa last year on my 40th birthday. It is a beautiful reminder to hold one’s self and others in a state of compassion and mercy.

Someone stole that statue.

I feel my heart. The gentle sadness there. And at the same time, because I’m not allowing the emotion to take over, my brain is still in the game. “Just make another, smaller print of that picture that you can put on the boat. Yes, the statue is gone, and the framed print is about to be, but you still have the .jpg on your computer!”

Then, I manage a real smile. I can shake my head and go back to packing and still honor that little sad place. And know that it’s okay to let go.

More is on its way.