We’ve been working on our leaving to-do list for about a year. This is the opposite of the going-list, the one where we get ready to be in Paris: finding schools, apartments, banks, etc. This is the one where we get ready to not be in Calgary. While the going-list is exciting and filled with possibility, the leaving-list is a little monotonous and sometimes conflicted with emotions. We’ve been chipping away at it, slowing at first and gradually increasing to a frantic pace as we get closer to departure. Here is a high level view of the low level tasks:

The Leaving-List

• House. We considered renting our house as the income would certainly be helpful to offset the astronomical rent we will pay in Paris. However, to do so, we’d have to clear out all of our personal belongings and hire an agent to manage the property as we did not want to be responsible for arranging boiler repairs, or something similar, from overseas. Plus, we’ve all heard stories about rentals going bad and we did not want the stress of having to evict drug dealers from our house again (that’s another story). We decided to put the word out to see if there were friends of friends who needed a place and were lucky to find a neighborhood family doing a renovation. We agreed we would clear out enough storage space so they felt at home but we wouldn’t box up the whole house. In exchange, they would take care of the place and cover the monthly expenses. 
• Cars. Our initial plan was to sell our cars. Then we looked into our crystal ball to imagine coming back to Calgary after a year in Paris and needing to buy two cars. Thinking we might not be feeling too flush at that point, it seemed better to come back to our existing cars. We decided to store them and learned that once you remove all liability insurance to just pay fire and theft and storage, it is more affordable than selling and buying again. 
• Belongings. The big realization: we have too much stuff! Thank goodness we didn’t need to pack up the whole house but we did want to ensure our house family would have enough space to make it feel like home for them. Even with that small goal, we could have filled many, many storage boxes. This was the ideal time to do a purge. So, while everyone else we knew was going on holiday for spring break, we stayed in Calgary and planned a “purge- project” a day: Monday we organized, gave away and threw out art; Tuesday was girls clothes; Wednesday we did books and stuffed animals (yes, there were enough of them to give them their own category); Thursday was dedicated to art supplies and Friday was a day of well earned rest. Since then we have continued our projects of making space and have taken advantage of more than one neighborhood cleanup program where you can bring your garbage to the big community bins. We are down to the last few weeks now and still have bags all over the house earmarked for good will, good-friends or good-riddance. 
• Bills. Get everything on auto-payment and ask utilities to send emails instead of paper
• Insurance. Notify the insurance company of our plans to have house-sitters and put cars on the cheapest plans.
• Health. Doctor and dental appointments for everyone, what fun! And filling what prescriptions might be needed for while we are away. Apparently Canadian prescriptions will be honored in France but we didn’t really want to test that theory if we needed something.
• Orthodontist. Turns out we were taking our girls away from Canada during a pivotal time, ortho-wise. So both of them were put on the fast track plan to solve their issues before departure. Days before leaving Canada, they would remove their appliances and get their retainers. 
• Mail. Forward it and plan for regular shipments to Paris of papers that cannot be ignored.
• Finances. Sort out how to do your taxes from abroad.
• Food. My plan to use up all of the food in the house started in January. I started buying fewer new things and planned menus around using what was in our freezer. By March, new pantry purchases were verboten with the exception of coffee beans. In the last couple of months we had regular “soup and sandwich” nights, which would go through our homemade frozen soups and use up condiments. Why did we have so many condiments? In the last month, the meal pickings have been pretty slim but every time I get to recycle another box, bag or can, I celebrate. The rest of the family did not share my enthusiasm and the phrase; “in the spirit of using things up…” became less and less appreciated.

We were crossing items off this list until the day we left Canada and I suspect we will learn, over time, of the things we forgot. Hopefully that list is smaller than the one of the things we remembered.