There comes a time in life when you realize you will not, as you believed in your teens, live forever. While that realization came to my husband and me long before now, at 80 and 67 years old, respectively, preparing for our potential infirmity and eventual death moved up on our priority list recently.
Circumstances propelled us into action after my beloved mom passed away last August. She had lived in our ADU for the last four years, and suddenly it was silent and dark, void of my mom’s indefatigably joyful spirit and contagious laughter. I couldn’t look upon the ADU from our home without experiencing, as a dear friend said, “a tsunami of grief.”
Then, soon after, longtime friends downsized and moved to ensure neither spouse ended up with years of collected belongings to pare down should they need to move, also sparing their daughter that work later.
That generated a spark: We, too, could downsize — to our ADU. All on one level, we’d rid ourselves of the many stairs to and within our home. And by divesting ourselves of our “stuff,” we’d lighten the load for the remaining spouse should one of us predecease the other — and save our kids the chore.
Reactions to our decision to ditch our chockablock full, 1,800-square-foot home in favor of a 760-square-foot space included comments such as, “You’re doing whaaaat?” and “Don’t you need some space away from your husband?” (I don’t.) My millennial son, however, who lives simply and decries consumerism, is an unabashed supporter of the change.
But we’ve done it. Sold many of our once-treasured belongings and schlepped our remaining possessions 20 feet from the house to the ADU, where we now reside. Is there some pain in this process? Yes, but it isn’t insurmountable. For those of you who might be considering downsizing, here are some things we’ve learned:
- Once both of our minds were made up to make this move, it was easy to part with once-coveted items.
- It’s gratifying to give things to people who will treasure them. For example, the Cape Water Buffalo head, the animal of which was bagged by my husband’s father in the 1950s and served time in a Dufur, Ore., bar before hanging out with us for 20 years, is going to my husband’s nephew — and he’s thrilled. Whew!
- It’s been equally gratifying to sell our treasured stuff to people we didn’t know, but you could see from the smile on their faces that they were going to give them a good home.
The best outcome from this move, however, is that I no longer feel sadness about the ADU. Instead, I feel it’s my turn to bring joy and laughter to those who venture across the threshold of our tiny home.
Do you have a downsizing story to tell? We’d love to hear it. Email Editor@BWNApdx.org.
Susan Trabucco is a BWNA Board member and the volunteer editor of this newsletter. She was the founder, editor and publisher of a regional business journal. Since 2012, Susan and her husband have called B-W home, where she practices zonal denial in her tropical-ish garden. Reach her by emailing Editor@BWNApdx.org.