When my dad died in September 2020, a part of me knew that it was time to come home. 

Home happened to be 367 km away from Cebu where I have been living for the past 19 years. Kalibo, Aklan is in Panay Island, located in the western part of the Visayas. This move was doable, but it would certainly be challenging.

I will admit this was overwhelming and scary for me. Moving meant leaving a city and a job that I loved. Moving meant saying goodbye to friends who became family. Mix in grief and the complications of doing everything during the pandemic to that, and you have a perfect recipe for a nervous breakdown or an anxiety attack. But thankfully, none of that happened. 

Here I’ll be sharing with you how my sister and I managed to do all that successfully. It wasn’t easy, but it was doable. If you or anyone you know is going through something similar, I hope that you will find value in the things that I learned from the experience. 

Pray & Prep

Studies say that moving is considered to be one of the most stressful life events that a person can go through. That’s why when moving spaces, one needs to take care of their own headspace as well. I went into this move by soaking it in prayer. From the moment we decided on it to the moment it was completed, I constantly prayed for a smooth transition. This helped me face the overwhelming task with the right mindset and proper heart posture. 

I also prepared by planning out my strategy for the move. We decided that we would divide the process into two: Part 1 would be downsizing and part 2 would be the actual packing. I really believe that being mentally prepared for it was winning half the battle already. 

Downsize, downsize, downsize!

I had 19 years’ worth of accumulated stuff in our apartment and there was no way that I was bringing all of them to Aklan. I took a mental inventory of the things I had and made categories of the things I wanted to bring home. My categories included: clothes, bags, shoes, accessories, skincare, books, memorabilia, etc. Anything that did not belong to those categories I had to give away or sell. 

Then I had to downsize my categorized items. My goal was to let go of half of them or a significant portion at the very least.

As I mentioned in my previous article, do the downsizing one section at a time.  In this case, one category at a time. Make an event out of it! For example, I designated a certain day my Closet Day in which I only focused on sorting through all my clothes. Because I was focusing on this category alone, I was able to decide on what clothes to keep, sell, give, donate, or even throw away in only six hours! Then I did the same for all the other categories. 

Downsizing Tips: 

• Uniqlo stores accept donated clothes. 
• Dress up when you downsize. I wore workout clothes and even sneakers on all the days that I worked on The Move. It helped me battle laziness and made me feel good about myself thinking that as I was doing the process I was also working out. 

Mark Your Calendar

An organized schedule is very important to help you get to your move-out date without cramming or panicking. 

1. Schedule your cargo company ahead: Call your cargo company and give them your desired date of pick-up. Having this date in place will allow you to pace your schedule accordingly.
2. Do a countdown to pick-up date: Do a countdown of how many days you have left until the pick-up date so that you can monitor your progress vis-a-vis the number of days you have left.
3. Schedule your goodbyes: Because we were moving out during the pandemic, I could only say goodbye to friends in small groups and pace the dates out to lessen my exposure. I knew that meeting them to say goodbye put them at risk of exposure too, so I always made sure that I was careful when I was meeting them. I also always prayed for protection not just for myself but for the people I would be meeting that day.
4. Schedule your errands: There will be errands! Processing travel papers, swab tests, having our wifi connection transferred to the new tenant, etc.  Schedule them accordingly.

Pre-Packing Preparations

I scheduled my packing two weeks before the pick-up date. By this time, everything we weren’t bringing had been sold or given away already. Buy balikbayan boxes (which you can buy from True Value), packaging tape, masking tape, plastic straw twine, permanent markers and neon sticker paper for labeling, and bubble wrap or newspaper for any breakable items you need to wrap. Have a pair of scissors and a cutter on hand as well. 

Pack with Purpose and Wisdom

Packing gives you one more chance to decide what things you do not need to bring with you. That’s okay. That’s actually good. It means you have more space for the things that truly matter.

1. Pack all items under one category in one box or container. (I also used my existing Megaboxes and luggage for packing.) Label the box or bag so you know later on what is inside.
2. Secure all boxes and bags with packaging tape and plastic straw twine. (The cargo company usually requires this)
3. Print out your home address with your contact name and number on the neon sticker paper and stick them on ALL of your boxes and bags. Using your extra sticker paper, assign a number to each box or bag and list them down so that if one of them goes missing, you will know which one it is. 

Packing Tips:

• Learn how to do the ranger roll and apply it to all small clothing items when packing.
• Dresses and other huge items of clothing were not folded; instead I just laid them out on the luggage as is — this actually saved me more space.
• All my accessories were hidden in the extra spaces of all my shoe boxes. In fact, all hollow spaces were fair game; if there’s space there stick something in.
• Assign a person who will receive everything that you have not packed, donated, or given away. These items will usually be perishables left in your fridge, condiments, and some other items you forgot about but do not want to bring with you.

Because we stuck to our schedule, we were able to have a Cebu staycation before we travelled to Aklan. The whole process was hectic, but the stress levels were very manageable.

All of our boxes and bags arrived in Aklan exactly seven days after they were shipped from  Cebu. All boxes and bags were accounted for and none of our belongings were damaged. 

Now it is time to unpack my new life in Aklan. There is much work to do, but there is much to be excited about too. I hope I catch you again next time as I share more of my space managing journey with you.