One thing that’s easy to overlook when planning an international move is choosing what’s going to make the move with you, and more importantly, how much work it will be.

In the U.S., it was much more straightforward, especially if you’re lucky enough to have corporate relocation. A team of movers shows up, packs everything up for you, loads it in a moving van, and delivers it to you at your new home.

After retirement, the dynamics change a bit. First, you’re paying for the move more directly! But an international move changes the dynamic even more. How easy is it to ship to the new country? How long will it take? What exactly will we need?

That last question was really the crux of it all. We’d been shedding *stuff* for a few years – every year, it seemed we donated more and more, but we still had what seemed to be a lot. Or at least, more than what we envisioned taking with us.

The final sort was the most challenging. Hard decisions had to be made. Logically, they were easy. Emotionally, not so much. As much as I loved the china set that was given to me for my first wedding, realistically I knew I would never use it again. My mother’s wedding dress, my grandmother’s serving china, or my grandfather’s old wood stereo, on which he used to play his big band favourites? Same thing. Time was spent holding them, touching them, saying goodbye. They were all donated. Old pictures, report cards, yearbooks? Digital scans were made and the originals sent to recycling. None of that was easy. Tears were shed more than once in making those decisions.

What was left was divided into two groups. We bundled everything that we didn’t immediately need – everything to set up a home – in totes that filled approximately one and a half pallets. In those totes were winter clothes, small mementos of our travels, small sentimental items (such as my great-grandmother’s formal china tea set and her china teacups), artwork we loved, bedding, linens (we’d heard that while available in Panamà, we had better quality already), some limited kitchenware items (ditto), and of course, my LEGO collection, which took up just over half the totes. (The evolution of the LEGO collection and its final form is a discussion for another post, and indeed, another blog.)

Those totes were shipped off ahead of us, and would meet us in Panamà.

That left everything else. “Everything else” meant the things we wanted with us at all times. Clothes that we would need in a tropical climate for two months. Hard drives. Cameras. Electronics. Jewelry. Maybe even a small LEGO set or two (shhhh.). And, of course, the dogs.

At the end of the day, if something happened to the totes shipment, and all the stuff in it, we would be sad. Some of that would be difficult or impossible to replace. But, it was just stuff. Everything that we really needed, we had with us.

Everything we needed is what we took on the plane with us. Four suitcases, three backpacks, and two dogs.

A short list, but a lot of emotional work to get there.