No Fixed Address

Well, I rented a mailbox from a UPS store around the corner from where I am now. I get very little mail, bills are mostly done online these days. Although, I do get one check from a company that doesn't offer direct deposit, and I've just given them the third change of address in a 12 month period. So it would almost be worth it just for that.

But the main reason I've taken the mailbox is that I've been having to provide proof of my address lately. Three separate companies, with three different types of financial services, have insisted upon seeing something official with my name and address on it. Two would not validate accounts for me until I provide it, and the third is my brokerage company, who will not send me a check of my own money to a new address without proof. I know all of this is for my own protection, but my regular banks let me change my address online. Of course, one of them also insists on sending out paper statements even though they're available online. Ridiculous. Yet another reason for the mailbox, though.

And I went with the UPS Store option, rather than the U.S. Post Office, because I can just call the UPS Store once or twice a month and have them send me anything that's in the box. I can also have packages delivered there, if necessary, to be forwarded to me later. It's a good service, all around, for someone like me. I may just keep it regardless of whether I end up with my own place again.

Anyway, the snag is that DMV will not allow you to use that type of address on your driver's license. So, it's not my fault that my license will not have a correct address on it. Still, I'm going to apply for a duplicate before I move out of here and will at least provide them with a different mailing address at that time. They do allow that, thank goodness.

Sooo, in less than two weeks, I will be moving out of this apartment and I'm only sure of where I'll be for about 3 weeks afterward. I literally have no freaking clue where I'll be after that. It will very likely be there for a while longer or New Orleans, probably some combination of both through the middle of August. If I get very lucky, the summer will also include a trip to the East coast, a D.C./NYC combo. If so, chances are I'll have 7 year old with me, which is fine. There's a lot in both places I'd like to show her.

After the summer, though, nothing is certain. But it's kind of looking like I'll be spending a good chunk of September and/or October out of the country. Possibly Europe, possibly an almost 3rd world beach in Central America. Again, if I get very lucky, it could be both. I will probably be a very unhappy camper if I get neither.

Technically, though, I will be homeless. A true vagabond. I think that may be my true calling.

What is going to be really interesting about all this is what I'm going to end up with in terms of possessions. All the recent upheaval happened so fast that I barely realized how successful I've been at purging. It's amazing at how comfortable 7 year old and I have been with a blow-up bed, 2 table chairs, a desk chair and a couple of tray tables.

I do have some wire shelves holding a large all in one printer and office supplies. I'll be bringing those up to my sister. I'm down to only 2 boxes of books, which boggles my mind after a couple of decades of moving several towers of book boxes around the country. And I've got a few small boxes of old files and photos.

I'm planning on spending the few weeks after I leave here scanning both the books, to put on my Kindle, and the files/photos. I'll give away the books and destroy the files, but it's going to be tough for me to destroy some of the photos. I'll probably just give my family any that include them. It won't be hard for me to destroy any that don't include them, if I've got digital copies.

But, seriously, I am looking at being extremely footloose for at least a relatively short period of time. And, as much as I've moved around most of my life, this is a completely different situation from any I've encountered before. Even what I've been doing for the last couple of months, kind of camping out in an apartment temporarily due to circumstances, is not unfamiliar. But what's coming up next, possibly as soon as mid-August, could be more along the lines of setting off to see the world with a couple of suitcases and a big purse.

And I would prefer not to ask anyone, even though my mother and sister have enough room not to be terribly inconvenienced, to store even such meager belongings that I can't drag along with me. I'll offer my sister any books she might like, but I won't ask her to keep even two small boxes. I want them on my Kindle anyway, so I have to get around to scanning them.

I have one large hanging bag, from a nice set of luggage, in which I will put anything that - for whatever reason - I won't take with me and can't bear to part with. And that will be my storage unit, if I need one. I feel like something that size/weight is not too very big of an imposition to leave somewhere.

The files are a different story. For some reason, I have become the repository of my family's history. I have no idea why, and it doesn't make sense, because I move around the most. I've got some very old documents and artifacts that I'm not sure what to do with. They can't possibly be important any longer, although some are interesting. To us anyway, because it's our family.

As I said, I'll scan the docs and take photos of the artifacts. But I'll be abdicating responsibility for the originals. My brother and sister can decide what is to be done with them.

I'm kinda starting to feel like a snake shedding its skin.

Anyway, I've still got to decide how I want to handle file backup. Up until now, I've carried a flash drive with me with my backed up files, in case my laptop hard drive wasn't available for any reason. Broken, stolen, virus, whatever. Then I've left a duplicate flash drive on my desk at home, in case anything happened to me and my computer while traveling, plane crash or whatever. But now I won't have a desk at home on which to leave things.

It's not really feasible to leave a drive with anyone else, either, because the files keep changing and the backups need to be updated. I'm thinking that online file storage is pretty much the only way to go with this. It's not an option I've ever pursued, because it was never necessary for me. Plus, I'm still not completely convinced of their trustworthiness and security. Now, though, I don't really see a better option.

I've always been a little paranoid about my flash drives, as well. What if I lose one? There is some very sensitive information on there that I wouldn't want to get into the wrong hands. The drive I carried with me was password protected, but I was never completely at ease hauling it around with me. They're so small now, it just seems like they're so easy to lose. In fact, I think I have lost one. A tiny one, but still full of stuff. So easy to misplace because it was so tiny and not often used.

I'm hoping it got thrown out by mistake. It was one of the non-password protected drives I left behind on my desk when I traveled.

Now, though, I'm not quite as afraid. I back up onto the tiny micro SD card that goes in my phone. Not only is it backup, but I have access to my files when I don't have my computer with me. And, of course, I'm almost never without my phone. I need a bigger card, though, an 8 gig. The one I have is only a 4.

Because I'm anal, I'm thinking about having a 2nd backup, just because my wireless USB stick has a card slot in it. I pretty much always have that with me, too, because it's my only source of internet these days. But I can't decide if I'd just be asking for trouble making a 2nd copy of my most important files. I mean, I'll still have them all on my laptop. And I'll still have to do an online backup because, if my laptop and I are destroyed together, chances are my phone and USB stick will be too. Yes, I know it's morbid, but I'm trying be forward thinking here. Probably getting a little obsessive because so much of my future is so uncertain. And I'm anal.

I've actually been having this situation at the back of my mind for quite some time now. As I started losing weight - down 20 lbs now - I started working on my wardrobe. It was fairly easy to purge, because almost everything I owned was pretty worn. I refused to buy anything new until I lost the weight I had gained 4 years ago when I quit smoking. I never dreamed it would take this long but, as it happens, it's worked out okay.

Everything I've been buying has had to meet certain criteria. One, it had to travel well, not only being non-wrinkly but also being quick to wash and dry. That resulted in mostly comparatively thinner fabrics, but that's fine, because I'd rather layer anyway. Two, of course it had to be comfortable. I like the mix I ended up with. There's not a whole lot of variety, mostly it's just a lot of the same in different colors. But they're all easy wear and care, yet look good enough to satisfy my sense of style. I may still need to get a travel steamer, but there's time for that yet.

Shedding weight, purging almost every possession except what I can carry. It looks, and feels, like I'm unexpectedly going through a real metamorphosis at the moment. Who'd have thunk it?

You know, I've joked for years about how I aspired to a lifestyle so minimalist that all I owned was what I could carry. But now that I'm practically a hair away from achieving that very thing, I have to say it kind of snuck up on me. Maybe it's because the purging was spread out between three separate moves over the last year and a half.

Although I was particularly ruthless for this last move. First, because I knew it was going to be an incredibly short 2 months that I knew would just fly by. I didn't want to bring any more than was absolutely crucial. But the main reason was, as I mentioned before, I knew I would inching up to this point soon. And I wanted to be able to move light and fast.

For years now, I've felt that I wouldn't actually be able to travel and move around freely until I rid myself of any debris cluttering up my life. If I had any remnants of previous blogs, I know I'd find reference to those goals - both the travel and the decluttering.

And I was right...but it's taken way too long. I've always been a freaking procrastinator, damn it.