I’ve lived in the same house for more than thirty years. My friend from church has lived in fourteen.
Her husband served in the Army for twenty-six years. Every two years or so, a new set of orders came, and the whole family packed up and started over somewhere new.
Fourteen houses. Fourteen kitchens. Fourteen times saying goodbye to friends she loved.
One Sunday after church, I asked her how she ever kept track of it all. She laughed and said, “Honey, I didn’t keep it all. That’s the secret.”
That one line stayed with me all week. So I invited her over for coffee and asked her to teach me everything she knew.
I’ve never moved in thirty years, and I hope I never have to. But the way she lives with her things changed the way I look at mine. These are the lessons a military wife taught me about keeping less, and why they matter even if you never pack a single box.
“Everything You Own, You Carry”
When a military family moves, the government pays to move their things, up to a weight limit. The limit is based on the service member’s rank.
If the family’s things weigh more than the limit, they pay for the extra pounds themselves. My friend learned that the hard way, early on.
“The first time, we went over,” she said. “We paid to move boxes I never even opened.”
After that, she looked at everything a little differently. Every lamp, every pan and every box of old magazines had a weight. And every pound had to earn its place on the truck.
She said it this way, and I wrote it down on the back of my church bulletin: “Everything you own, you carry.”
I’ve never paid to move a thing. But I carry my things, too.
I dust them, store them, step around them and worry about them. That’s a kind of weight, even if no one ever puts it on a scale.</