We're gonna need a bigger [suitcase]

So the first step in a single journey begins with a suitcase, according to Zen traditions. But the problem is, when you’re moving yourself halfway around the globe, there is no such thing as traveling light.

So one suitcase becomes two, becomes three, becomes “oh, crap, the baggage overage fee is going to make me weep.”

More interesting, to me, anyway, was that I had managed to condense my 32-year-old life into four suitcases, a laptop and about six boxes in our storage locker. When I was in college, I could move my life’s belongings, quite literally, in the back of my gigantic blue car. Counting furniture—and a fiancé and a dog—that’s not possible anymore. Nor should it be.

But as I type this, jammed into a narrow 747 seat next to a wide German gentleman with sharp elbows, I’m surprised at how I was able to distill everything down to those four expensive bags. Will it all look the same as I unfold everything into my new Abu Dhabi life?