Grand-Parentization

So far we have been surprisingly comfortable in Georgetown and in the new house. Though, the move, and the house, have required us to confront some things, and that has not always been particularly pleasant. For example, we are finally forced to do the serious downsizing that is at the heart of...for lack of a better term...grandparent-ization.

You see, this house is quite a bit smaller than the ones we’ve had before. Don’t get me wrong. It is very nice, but it is cozy. Where, for instance, we had four bedrooms, a living room, a den, and a sunroom in Albuquerque, now we have three bedrooms and a living room, but no den and no sunroom. Zillow puts our square footage in the new house at 1570, where-as the ABQ house had 2379 square feet.

This has made us rethink what we own and what we really want to keep. We have already divested ourselves of a good many pieces of furniture. Now we have to figure out what to do with our paintings, pictures, prints, and, particularly, our books.

That’s been tough, and it will get tougher, but the really difficult thing is in reconsidering who we are and what we need. Today we were unpacking the rest of our kitchenware -- plates, dishes, coffee cups, etc. And that brought us face to face with the fact that, well, we are no longer in need of the twenty or so wine glasses that we’ve had for years. Four will do quite nicely, even if we have company. The same is true for coffee cups. I have a small collection of them dating from back when I was a journalist and was always getting mugs from trade shows. But, again, why do I need them? Four cups is more than enough, particularly since I merrily wash the dishes in our brand new (and incredibly quiet) GE dishwasher every night.

Of course, it is easy enough for me to take those extra coffee cups and glasses and what have you, rewrap them  in the same paper the movers used to ship them here, put them back in a box, and take them into the garage...where they will remain until (if) we have an occasion to actually use them again. But the point is that things have charged. We are no longer at a place in our lives when we are likely to have large gatherings for reasons ranging from the personal to the professional. We will have “grand-parently” gatherings of smaller groups, or, if they are large, then they will probably be someplace other than here.

This is not a sad thing. But it is a marker. We have left one stage of our lives and gone to another. And transition, no matter how benign, is unsettling…

Not a Dish Washer, but you get the point.