Moving to Colorado: Looking forward and letting go

With one week remaining until the moving truck comes to pick up our belongings, Phil and I have been packing non-stop. It seems like we have a lot of stuff even though we don’t have enough stuff to be cast on the TV show hoarders. Having to go through everything you own is very exhausting and time consuming. We’ve lived in our house for almost 6 years; we didn’t have a lot when we moved in but the longer we’ve lived here the more stuff we’ve acquired. People keep telling me that this is normal, but I am skeptical.

We’ve been using this move as a way to purge our lives of useless things, or as Emily Gilmore recently said (if you’ve watched the Gilmore Girls revival) “things that don’t bring us joy”. It is easy to part with some things and challenging to part with others, but we can’t keep everything. I try not to let myself become attached to a lot of material things because I know that the very things I hold onto can also weigh me down. I’ve had the hardest time letting go of running related things. As much as I wanted to hold onto everything I feel so much better now that I’ve let a lot of it go. The less I hold onto the freer I feel! I don’t need to keep every running memory. Honestly, not every part of my running journey has been happy and I need to let the unhappy parts of it go. I am tired of dwelling on bad races. I’d rather focus on the races I plan to run in the future. In Colorado I hope to get back on track (see that pun!) with running and I don’t want to tote around a bunch of negative memories. If it wasn’t displayed I don’t need it; there was a reason it was in a box or a closet.

Coincidentally, we are about to begin a new year. Last year I said that 2016 was going to be a year of radical change, and it was! In 2016 I left my full time job, spent the summer in California doing an internship for graduate school, caught a foul ball, and most recently Phil and I decided to sell our house and move to Colorado because he was offered a new job. Had you asked me a year ago I wouldn’t have guessed any of those things would happen. 2016 has been an eventful year.

I sometimes struggle let go of the past, but I think everyone struggles with this at times. Even though letting go isn’t easy I have been fortunate enough to find closure in a lot of difficult situations as a result of this move. When you’ve lived in one area your whole life it isn’t shocking that moving away will bring up a lot of emotions. It will be difficult to leave New Jersey, but I am very excited to move to Colorado and run up the mountains. Anytime you change your life in a drastic way you are going to have to deal with emotions, stress, and the overall feeling of uncertainty–even when you know you are making the right decision. As 2017 approaches it is important to keep looking forward.