The end is in sight.

Or maybe it’s the beginning.

I suppose it’s both; the end of living With An Address and the beginning of living Wherever We Are.

I’m writing this while we sit in the ferry line-up for the Sunshine Coast. Our vehicle is once again full of stuff that we are storing at various friends and relatives (thank you Norma, Jim, Dennis, Roxanne, Karen, Yvonne, Bruce, Mac, Amber, Randy, Diane, Linda, Gayle, Frank & Virginia!!)

Our little freezer is emptied and lying on its side in the back. The coolers surround it, filled with the frozen packages of moose and venison. Tucked beside are stacks of my half-finished paintings, the art from our walls, all the random bits and pieces of our lives that are too bulky to fit in our apartment storage locker and will hopefully be enjoyed in the interim by each recipient (I have created a master list entitled Offsite Storage, so we can keep track of who has what where).

Our future plan (thus far) is to move to the Coast around the middle of October. We will hopefully find a furnished home to rent for a few months, which is when we can dive into our frozen cache of food, hang some of the stored art and roll out a rug or two.

But that is then, and this is now.

For our most immediate future, we know this. On Saturday morning the renters move into our apartment. By the time they arrive, the place will be clean and freshly painted. We will be packed up and ready to drive south into Washington where we will begin this new life.

During one of our endless elevator rides to our storage locker, I asked Kevin if he had any guesses as to where we might be at this time next year. Did he think we’d be moving into a house or apartment? Did he have any ideas as to where that might be if we did?

He shrugged, “I have no idea,” he said.

“Exactly,” I replied. “I don’t have a clue either. Do you think that’s weird?” I asked.

“Don’t know. I think it just is. I kind of like it.”

“Me too,” I said. “It feels okay.”

Meanwhile, we have handled each item we own; every notepad, paperclip, spice jar, every single spatula, pair of shoes and bracelets. Each thing has been either set free to start a new life elsewhere, packed to store in our lockers, or categorized into a bin to come along.

And although part of this exercise was to learn how to live with less, I swear we have kept one entire Chinese factory in business with the endless purchasing of bins and boxes. It seems the height of irony that we have bought so much all so we can live so small.

But I know without a doubt that without those stackable bins there would be no categorization, and, without that labelled containment, we would just have one big messy pile of dusty stuff.

As we Tetris-fit each item into the best possible fit, I try to remember to thank and bless all those Chinese factory workers.

So thank you Chinese workers. Thanks for showing up at a job that I’m sure can’t be much fun. Your efforts have truly been a key factor in making all of this possible.