Preparing For Our Move
✅ Purge our belonging (again)
✅ Hurry up and wait… while preparing to hurry?
Once again we find ourselves in an odd sort of purgatory.
As I sit here writing this, we are still unwilling residents of a purgatory that is devoid of any schedule. A purgatory that will only spit us out and deposit us in Veneto once we have a lease. The Italian landlord who is willing to enter into a short-term lease with an American is an elusive entity. So rare are they, in fact, that they border on the mythical. A being filed into a category that is unicorn-adjacent. Our service provider is currently on the hunt for said mythical property owner. We can’t move forward until one is found and once they are everything will suddenly rush forward at breakneck speed. This leaves us feeling a bit like skydivers who have been languidly circling the troposphere for months waiting for conditions to be right so we can plunge belly first into a 120 mph American exodus. Basically, we need to be ready to move from our perpetual jog-in-place to a Usain Bolt-style sprint within a matter of weeks.
We’ve been keeping things pseudo-minimalist in our apartment.
“When we transitioned into our small two bedroom apartment we got some select pieces of smaller furniture with the intention of selling them when we got closer to our move to Italy”
It’s a tricky spot to be in because if we start selling off our remaining things now we’ll be living in a empty shoe box for weeks. It’s should go without saying that this would not be ideal with two small children. On the other hand we don’t want to wait too long and be left scrambling to tie up loose ends at the eleventh hour. It’s an odd little situation we’ve found ourselves in.
Paring down slowly, shedding weight a little at a time, has become our modus operandi. We sold our second car at the beginning of the month - which has been tricky to manage, and we’ve been identifying things that, while inconvenient, we could find a way to live without for a month or two.
I will miss our cute little terrace and our balcony garden
I am looking forward to starting a cute little Italian garden immediately upon arrival. Even if its just on a terrace.
In addition to prepping what we can stand to lose in the States, we have also started the prep of what we need to acquire in Italy. We’ve been researching Italian cellular provider, international banking options, and trying to decide whether SendMyBag makes more sense than schlepping a dozen bags onto a long haul flight with two kids. We go to get our International Driving Permits this week at our local AAA office (they’re one of only two businesses that can issue them). Without an IDP we would be unable to rent or lease a car in the first year of living in Europe (after a year an American drivers license is no longer valid for operating a vehicle in Italy and we will have to get an Italian one anyway). We need to figure out what we will be choosing for car seats for the kids (you too can brush up on Italian carseat laws here if you feel so inclined. It’s riveting. Truly /s). We’ve also been doing another sweep through everyone’s closets to get a final bulk clothing and shoe donation / consignment haul.
All of these things, though seemingly passive, will make it much easier to shift into 4th gear when we get the green light from our service provider. I also think it’s a good, low stakes way for me to keep the kids involved. It’s not down to the wire right now so I’m not stressed about making sure everything is in its final state, logically organized and packed. I’m just whittling away at things. It’s chill. So If an almost-five and an almost-three year old want to make completely nonsensical decisions regarding which books they are willing to cull and which they want to hold onto like a tyrannical hoarder- no biggie …I’ll just quietly trim the extra fat later when it matters. They get to have input about what we do with their belongings and feel like they are involved in the process and I get to support their particular brand of crazy and not worry about making it make sense. Win-win.
Fingers crossed I’ll still be team laissez-faire & low stress in a few weeks and not completely consumed by over-thinking, over-packing, anxiety.
Ciao!
