So, in case I haven’t mentioned it already, we moved recently. Which means we are still in the throes of unpacking. And unpacking after the initial excitement has worn off is annoying. It’s like a game of Monopoly where you want to sabotage yourself and lose all your money to get out except people keep landing on your properties and paying you. And they’re paying you in unpacked boxes.

Moving, though somewhat of a monumental task, was facilitated by the adrenaline of the deadline. The packing, the cancelling and setting up of services, the praying for good weather in the middle of January – it’s all rather time-sensitive, so it gets done.

The packing has its own rhythm. A few weeks in advance, it’s like playing Jenga with your household items. It’s easy at first: I packed those things that were superfluous to everyday life or, at least, to my everyday January life. I easily boxed up things like fondue pots, swimsuits, CDs, weigh scales, Halloween decorations and our flip-flop collection.

The closer you get to the actual moving date, the trickier/Jenga-er it gets. Who knows what kind of cooking utensils you need to leave till the last minute? Or just how many clothes you will need for that first week because you won’t have the energy to unpack the rest of your clothes for at least another week? (Or two.) Or which books you need to leave out in case of a reading emergency? One false move and the whole thing comes crashing down as you find yourself rooting in ALL of your packed boxes for Post-It notes and leftover chocolate from Christmas. (Just kidding, there is no such thing as leftover chocolate.)

The day before moving, no matter your intentions of packing like items together for a seamless transition later, you start firing all manner of things into overly-large boxes whose weight will inspire colorful curse words, tying pillows and utensils and shampoo bottles up in bedsheets, and shoving furniture screws and such into your jeans pockets, confident you will remember where everything goes/went when you get to the new house.

You won’t.

Once all your worldly goods are finally at your new destination, the game changes to Tetris. Especially in the case of downsizing. It’s simple in the beginning because you start with the big stuff: for the most part, the table goes in the dining room, the beds go in the bedrooms, the desk goes in the office. Well, hypothetically the desk goes in the office. My desk, my overly-large-teenage-elephant-desk, went into the garage. Because when I bought it, I never envisioned the proper size necessary to fit into a tiny bedroom/office. Oh, the short-sightedness of empty-nesters! Silver lining: it classes up the garage.

But I digress. After the large pieces are in place, the game of Tetris starts coming at you faster and faster as you unpack your boxes and figure out what goes where. Our new kitchen easily has room for the forks and knives, a reasonable number of dishes, the toaster and the coffee maker. (Or even, the three coffeemakers. Because: coffee.)

Once the kitchen was unpacked, the linen closet filled and the bathrooms organized, I was pleased with the minimalist look our house exuded. THIS was before I started opening all the boxes of books and knickknacks. And extra kitchen stuff. And extra books and knickknacks. The clue that we have too much stuff: in the few short weeks since I packed some things, I lost all recollection of even owning them. Like, hypothetically: if a garbage bag full of, let’s say, Precious Moments statuettes accidentally was thrown away, I would be none the wiser. (This didn’t happen. I got rid of those several moves ago.)

I will continue with this game of Tetris because even though empty counters are easy to clean and restful for the eyes, the house doesn’t look like it’s been lived in yet. And I can’t get rid of things like my mom’s Royal Purple mug, the ornate jewelry box my Baba gave me for graduation, the birthday cards my daughter-in-law drew for me, the framed pictures of my boys in all their stages of growing up. I might work hard at being organized and clutter-free, but the “messes” that humans make in my home are still welcome, those messes that bear witness to life lived and not just displayed.

And besides, I wanna know what’s still in all those unpacked boxes.