In recent weeks I have invested considerable physical and mental energy into starting to get our house ready to list. Dex has been working on his list, highly visible things like repainting the kitchen. He has some outside projects (a little siding work, some fence work) and some inside projects (repainting parts of walls, completely repainting the den, making small repairs to various little things) to finish up. I have been working on the other stuff.

Other stuff. Lots and lots of that other stuff. What exactly? Well, beyond the physical condition of the house is a whole other layer of readiness. Think of the paint and lights and cabinets, the heating system and floors and appliances, as the muscles and bones of the house. Our house is in great shape muscle- and bone-wise.  For nearly fifteen years we’ve labored to strengthen the core body of this place. Roof, well, septic, heating - all replaced. Windows - brand new. Kitchen and bathrooms - totally renovated. Save for the pine floors, which need refinishing (and did when we moved in, let alone now after so many years and kids), the place is in great shape.

Now, think of the other stuff as the clothes and hair of the house. Our home is tidy and decently furnished, with a fair amount of antiques. But it’s at best business casual. A polo shirt tucked into jeans. It’s nice enough for our everyday living (when the toys are shoveled up and into bins) but just as I wouldn’t show up for a job interview in the polo and jeans, neither would I present this place as is to a prospective buyer.

So I have been replacing curtains, buying towels and dormats and matching flower pots and a new comforter, rearranging furniture, taking down pictures and personal doodads. I even bought a new litter box with a cover to make things as clean and fresh as humanly possible. The cat’s rear end will not grace his new throne until the For Sale sign is planted in the front yard.

The biggest task of this whole ordeal is decluttering. I call it decluttering, which sounds like I am just going around packing up the odds and ends. Which I am. But it goes much deeper than that. Decluttering a home is really a process of removing not only one’s inessential daily items but also one’s emotional attachments to the very rooms of one’s house. It is a painful and stressful stripping away of the ties that bind you each and every room. The things that potential buyers do not want to see are the very things - THE very things - that make your house your own. Every item with sentimental attachment must be wrapped, packed and stored away. Every little thing that when you gaze upon it reminds you of your family, your past, your childhood, your passions must be removed.

Decluttering, when you come down to it, is the process of removing your sense of Self, transforming your home into a house. Not YOUR house, but a house. A house that Chet or Sue or Annabelle could walk into and see themselves filling with all of their personal things and their senses of Self.

Talk about hard. Talk about exhausting.

So instead I focus on how great the new cushions on my porch furniture look. I marvel at the extra space seeming to appear before my eyes. I dream of the new rooms we will fill someday (soon, oh, please, soon) with the stuff I am wrapping and packing and storing away.