Another question I often get asked is how I can walk away from everything that I own. Well, firstly, I’m not the kind of person who accumulates too much in the way of memorabilia and meaningful objects. My home is pretty functional and fairly minimalist. It’s just easier to keep tidy that way, I suppose.
Six years ago, when Laura and I moved from England to Australia, we sold pretty much everything we had, and gave away a lot of the stuff we couldn’t bear to sell, to friends and family. When we arrived in Australia all we had was a ruck sack full of clothes each.
So I have gathered plenty of stuff over the past six years or so, a lot of it being the things that make an empty house into a home. But if I am selling the house to free myself to travel, or to do anything else I fancy, then I don’t need the household stuff.
I’ve already cleared from my life a few of the things that reminded me too much of Laura. Our wedding photos, for example, are with her, I would not want them around my house, even put away in the back of one of the cupboards.
I’ve also moved around a lot in the past two years. When we sold our house after our separation I packed a few things in my car, and moved 600km to live in a caravan in Kalgoorlie while I was working as a truck driver in the Kalgoorlie Super Pit.
So there isn’t too much of any sort of really meaningful stuff in the house anyway. So it is probably fairly easy for me to be able to walk away from it all as I usually don’t get too attached to things. However there are a few items around the house that will be harder than others to leave behind: some of my photographs, my harmonica from the days when I tried to learn how to play, my koala bear, my house warming post card from Paula, some of my favourite music CDs, etc…
But as I have always said, they are all staying when I leave, and they can all be yours if like, just make your bid from June 22nd.