Letting Go to Move Forward: A New Year, A New Chapter

Welcome to We Should Probably Edit This, but we won't.

This is about our life's messy journey. It's unscripted, talks about growth, real laughs, sometimes real laughs, sometimes just the chaos.

And, and we think there's a little bit of comedy here.

Everything.

It's about our 37 years of marriage and our experience. I'm Matthew Greger.

And I'm Nancy Greger. And we're your hosts of We Should Probably Edit This.

But we won't.

There you go.

And we probably should have edited that. So, here's our next episode.

Yes.

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year 2026!

Yay! Alright, we made it. Our first episode of 2026.

Oh my goodness.

We should probably edit this.

But we won't.

I'm Matthew Greger.

And I'm Nancy Greger. How are you? Hopefully 2026 starts off with a bang.

I know. Well, I don't know if you want a bang necessarily.

Well.

Depends if it's a good bang or a bad bang.

You need high, high energy to kind of kick off the year. So, um. To kind of— we didn't record last weekend because it was Christmas time.

So I think it's been a couple of weeks. It has been a couple of weeks since it's been a blur for us because we have been processing. We've been processing this house to get ready for our move.

Yes, we have been going through a lifetime of clutter. And it was apropos. I wanted, I wanted to read this today. I was on Instagram and you know how all the New Year's stuff comes in on Instagram. So here's, here's one of the things that I sent it to my husband, I sent it to a whole bunch of people, a whole bunch of people. And it's more than just this clip, but this one kind of just resonated and said, clutter isn't stuff. Clutter is postponed decisions, trapped energy, emotional backup files. It tells your brain, life is unstable, don't create more. So your nervous system stays stuck. So I find it to be very interesting how we, how we've been going through this whole process of getting our house not only ready for sale, but ready for us to make a big move, because this is a house that's 1,800 square feet, and we're barely going into—

It's not that big.

It's big. When you have 3 floors, it's big.

Well, I mean, it's 1,800 square feet of livable space, but the basement itself alone is probably another 1,000 square feet.

So when you have this much and you're going into an 1,100-square-foot home, there's a lot you have to get rid of. And you have to process this rather quickly. You have to say to yourself, do I want it? In which case, where am I going to keep it? Where am I going to store it? Is there a place for where it needs to go?

Well, I think the first thing is what's the purpose of having it?

There's no purpose in having anything.

Well, I mean, what do I need this for? I mean, my biggest thing is I had to go through my workshop my storage of my workshop, my fishing gear, my art stuff, art from back when I freelanced in New York City, uh, 30-something years ago. Um, and to me, part of it was going down memory lane, um, and the other part was trying to figure out, okay, what do I really need or not? And, and it's, it's been A lot. It's been a lot because it's been a lot for me emotionally and just feeling the pressure of having to get rid of the stuff. And at one point I felt like, how are we going to get rid of all this stuff?

So what did I keep saying to you?

How do you eat an elephant?

It's one bite at a time. So the best thing for you to have tackled is don't worry about the entire house. You tackle one specific area every single time until you get it to where it needs to be. And you have to make decisions quickly. So have a garbage can ready.

That's easier for you.

Have a paper bag ready.

And what's the paper bag for?

The garbage.

Oh, you mean have the garbage bag ready?

Have a garbage bag ready.

I thought that was maybe to, for me to like catch my breath.

No, there's no catching your breath. If it's one thing that you've learned in our 37 years of being married is what? I move quick.

I move to size faster than I do.

And I don't— still don't—

still do. No, you don't. I've been pondering the last—

I don't blink, but I did pretty good.

You have to—

you got pretty good after you realized one major factor, and that was it was not going to be a tag sale. When you realize that you weren't going to do that.

Then I started to panic a little bit, like, how am I going to get rid of all this now?

What'd I say? We got a dumpster. There's the 3 rules. You're either going to keep it, you're going to donate it, or you're going to throw it away, or you're going to sell it.

That's 4, 4 options.

Well, keeping it is probably one thing, but yeah, selling it. And we've sold—

selling or donate— or donating, or donating, or it's just garbage and you got to get rid of it.

Just get rid of I mean, I would say the dumpster's almost full. It's not full.

It's almost full. It's three-quarters.

I mean, and, and we had a guy here yesterday. Yeah, it was yesterday, who actually went into the dumpster and pulled out a few more and pulled out a few more things that he, that he figured, well, you're just gonna throw it away.

He came to pick up all my gardening tools and accessories because Habitat for Humanity wouldn't take those.

Yeah, for whatever reason. It's really, really difficult, I think. Here's the funny part to it all is we listed stuff for free and we've listed stuff for a very nominal amount of money, and we pretty much have been successful in having it go. So I'm always wondering why it is that donation centers such as Habitat for Humanity or Goodwill are being so picky, picky and really, really hard on certain things where Even if you were to take it and you say it's free.

I don't know if I would say, I don't know if I'd say it's free.

No, if they took it and they couldn't sell it, they could also give it away for free.

Probably. The objective of free. I don't know the logistics of that.

The objective of free is that it doesn't go in the landfill. It doesn't go in the dumpster.

It gets repurposed.

Somebody else is going to use it for whatever purposes they have in their head. Used paint, for instance. I was like, who would buy used paint? Probably nobody. But if you want to give it away for free.

Well, I had all kinds of paint and chemicals and stuff like that that was there, and we gave it away for free. It was better than trying to figure out how to dispose of it.

How to dispose of it.

Because you don't want it to— otherwise you got to wait for the hazardous waste day. And so, like, I'm going to move it in containers to wait for the hazardous waste day. To figure out how to dispose of it, but someone else took it and could use it. I mean, it's— I had acid etching, all kinds of stuff.

But not only did we do that, but we hired the company to come in and shred. They, they took all— I'd had papers from 2005.

Yeah, a lot of the— some of the papers when we had our own business. I had client files and stuff from— and we were like, years ago, and it's just like I mean, ever since we moved to this house, half of the stuff in the basement, we never even opened the container for.

Well, some of the stuff that was in there was when we were doing estate sales and we did house recycle.

Right.

I have more cleaning products than I'd ever, ever, ever.

Well, that's next to go on the free list. There's 3 big Rubbermaid containers of cleaning products.

Just cleaning products.

Yep.

So, um, that's, that's been a lot of fun and just figuring things, You know, do I wanna, if I can't give it away and no one wants to buy it, then I have to resolve myself to throwing it away. Otherwise I can't bring it with me. So it's gonna go in the garbage. But it's been a lot of fun. But I think everybody should take a moment where they go through a specific area in their house, their closets, their basement, their garage, My goodness, do I know a bunch of people. When you go driving around in the neighborhood and people leave their garage doors open and you always wonder why their cars are parked outside and not in the garage, then they open the garage and you're like, ooh, okay.

We live in the Northeast, okay? The Northeast right now, we probably still have at least a foot of snow on the ground, or maybe not quite a foot, but it's been snowing almost every day at least coating.

Yeah, yeah. And up to an inch.

Who— if you have a garage, why do you want to leave your car out so you have to, have to clean it off clean every day? It's, you know, so that's the one thing. Our garage is clean.

Yeah.

And it has been ever since we moved here because, well, number one, you can't put anything else in it but the two cars. It's teeny tiny, but it fits the two cars. And it's, it's one thing that's, you know, great. So I don't, I don't get it. I don't get why people don't keep the garage clean.

Oh, well, I think there's something to be said, though, about going through the process of the decluttering. You have to, you have to really train yourself to do that. And the one thing that the Instagram post mentioned is, is when you get to that point and you clear the clutter out, you're allowing yourself to bring in some newer energy, some more positive energy, because you're letting go of the negative energy.

You're letting go of someday. You're letting go of someday that never happens.

Never happens. Or I'll get to it. Or you never know. That was your famous line. I'm gonna keep this one little piece of wood because you never know.

Or the hardware, you never know. And then when you know that you could use it, you can't find it. That's for sure. That, that I've— that I discovered going through everything and saying, and saying Oh, there it is. I knew I needed this. Now I can't even remember what I needed it for.

So, right. So I think it's just like super, super important. Um, it's— I would say on top of, you know, everyone's like loves to make their New Year's resolution where they're— they say, I'm gonna eat healthy and I'm gonna lose weight and I'm gonna do this, this, and this. And they've set all their goals. I think the most simplistic goal to really do, or not even a goal, but mission to do is go through your closet. Literally go through your closet.

Get rid of stuff that doesn't fit, that doesn't fit, you haven't worn in 10 years, that has hanger marks when you put it on because it's been hanging for so long that you got bumps on your shoulder.

Donate it. You know, you don't have to sell it. Just donate it and move it along. Move the stuff along. Because it's been so, I think, relieved. I feel as though I'm like, okay.

I feel freedom from getting rid of stuff. There's a sense of purging that does something to you. Mm-hmm. You know, as much as even if we go back when we own a house again, a house or a condo again, and we have the opportunity to have the space to either have a workshop or have something, I already know right now it's going to be much more streamlined and cleaned up and the bare minimums for what you need. I just don't need that other stuff hanging around.

No. Now, I will say that some of the things that we had in the basement, we are the type of people when— because this is our third house, So we have always had to do repairs ourselves. So we couldn't afford to hire somebody to come and put a new floor down or drywall, which I love.

Or redo the porch.

Or redo sanding and doing— sanding and finishing things up. So we had to do it ourselves. So because we had, we did it ourselves, we had to buy certain materials to do that. And so A lot of what we had is because we were our own fixer-uppers. We were the fixer and the upper. Right here. This is what we did. So.

You got better at fixing. Yeah. Okay.

Not for choice. I'm a great painter.

Yes. You're a great massive doer. Then I come in and clean up.

Because how did we start off this? I'm the one who moves. I'm the one who—

yeah.

So a friend of ours came from Seattle to visit New York, and I went to the city, and the city was really, really cold. So I had to go get earmuffs to keep my ears warm, and I got pink earmuffs. And she made a comment to Matthew when we met up later on for dinner. She says, if it wasn't for those pink earmuffs, I don't know if I would have found her.

No, I would have been able to keep up with you going through the crowd. I still can't keep up with you going through the crowd.

I don't—

at least you look back once in a while. I do.

Where are they? Did I lose them? Let me stop. Because I am conscious of the fact that someone should be following me, but it's always amazing to me how they're not right behind me. Like, they're like 4 or 5 people behind me. So that's kind of always been my course of action. I just go. I'm like this zig and zag. I'll just move forward.

The fish swimming upstream.

Forward direction, forward movement. You make a decision, you just push through. You just push it till you get to where you need to be. And sometimes that could be very disruptive for a lot of people.

Not always.

Mm. Some people don't like change and they get very winded up.

Depends what it is. I'm looking forward to this change, but, but it, but getting going. I appreciated you finally, your, let me rephrase that. I appreciate that you helped me get all the stuff loaded into the garage and cleaned out the shed on before the donation pickup.

I did.

I did. Together, I think we work much faster. We go through it.

We only go much faster because I'll make decisions that you're taking too long to make.

But we still do because you'll struggle with other things in that processing where I'll come and help with that.

Yeah, I'm not—

Whether I'm moving things around or—

I will bring things. So here's the thing. I will bring things, put them in the garage, and I'll let you do your Jenga thing and packaging it up and getting it ready. I'm more like just dump it here. Let's get going. I'm not interested in making it look organized. I'm just here.

I know, it was like I organized all the tools to be picked up thinking that you could just put the whole, the whole container.

And what did the man do?

Wait, wait, I thought you could just put the whole container into the back of a pickup truck. But when you come in with a 4-foot pickup truck, a small Toyota, it's like, how in the world are you gonna actually put the stuff in there in the first place? And then he just dumps everything out and puts, and just like shoves it in the back of the truck.

Yep. So you, so all your intent of doing something just as everybody else's intention and how they vision how things need to be, 100%. You just kind of have to let it go. When you made the decision that you're going to sell it or you're going to get rid of it, decision's been made. How somebody else moves forward with it is totally up to them. You can't really sit back and think about it.

It's definitely been an experience. Getting rid of things and using Facebook Marketplace in particular.

You're limited to where we're at. We're in the, we're in the midst of cold.

We're not limited. It's just that I don't, I don't know very many other places that you can sell things locally. You know, I mean, I know there are some other tools out there. There's the Nextdoor app. There's a couple other things.

But let's face it, as much as Facebook Marketplace is very challenging, Um, it did work. Bombardment of people asking redundant questions over and over and over again. And it's like, no matter how well you classify, no matter how well you describe it, they don't read listed measurements. Um, people just—

how much is it? The price is already there.

It's, it's, or, or it's more like, is it my favorite and your favorite too? Is, is it still available?

Well, that's the default. That's the default, which I don't understand.

Facebook would get rid of all defaulted buttons, make people have to respond. Yeah, make people type up their questions. It shouldn't be that difficult now that everybody knows how to use their little thumbs to write out big words or even talk into their telephone. There shouldn't be an instant type of default setting. That's probably the one thing that neither one of us like.

I mean, in some cases, you know, you meet some cuckoo people. In other cases, you actually meet some really great people. Really great people. And they're actually so grateful for what you're selling and what they can use it for. I met one guy, his son is building go-karts in his garage. Reminded me of Noah when he was redoing the VW Bug. You know, you knew where he was and he needed extra lights and I had shop lights.

There we go. Or you have that young couple, they put all their money into buying a house, and that house needs work, and that house needs repair, or they're looking to do a big project. So they're very grateful for things that they're, you know, they're going to use it. And so that's a really good, a good scenario. It makes you feel good, like you didn't throw it away, you gave it to somebody. And in that particular case, I think we gave them all the windows and that's what we gave him. But, you know, it was one less thing for us to worry about, and that's really what it comes down to. I mean, we've sold a lot. We still have a few more things to sell. It's not like we're done, but we have to wait until the house is on the market.

We sold the main things that were needed, um, that would have had to go. Not needed, they were both needed to be gone, needed to be gone, right, before we could actually take pictures and sell the house, right?

Which is primarily a lot of stuff in the basement, but then going through those closets and going through offices and saying, okay, we're going to take this off because we're not going to bring that, and moving it along. And then like just a lot of stuff. We have sold a great deal, and I think we've made a good deal of money from what we sold, and we still have a few more things to go.

Yeah, made a few thousand dollars.

Yep. So that— those are all good things.

And so I mean, so that's something that, you know, if you need— if you want to go through the process and declutter, you know, really look at it and sell it or give it away first and then see about throwing it away. But it feels good to let it go. It's a new year, too. This is like perfect timing for us to let it go. Yeah. And to move on to the next chapter of what it is, you know, of— and when we go into this new place, there's not going to be clutter. There's going to be organization. There's no way. Yeah, well, you can always have clutter regardless of the space and size, right?

I think we have 1, 2, 3, 4 closets.

In the new place?

In the new place, 4 closets. So it's going to be interesting, but I also think it's going to be exciting because all the money that we have raised from selling all the stuff is going to go right back into buying new New stuff for the apartment, um, because a lot of things what we have here just don't fit, right? It won't work. It just won't work. So it's good, it's good. It's kind of bittersweet. Um, now I'm just more anxious, uh, about getting the house on the market and seeing how that takes off because if we don't— if the house doesn't show within the first 2 weeks, there's a problem there. And so you always are—

remember, you have to have the faith. Yeah, we have to have faith. And we've heard of a lot of other things moving quickly, so I think our house is in a good position for that.

So we have, we have. But it's— so anyway, so those are the kind of things that, um, is the next, next hurdle, is the next Elephant bite.

So, so moving into 2026, I mean, is there anything else that from that post that you can share, or from anything else that you're thinking about that's for the moving into 2026, what we should be looking forward to, or what we should be—

I mean, I, I honestly think, um, you know, 2026 is just for us. I think our— we had dinner with the kids yesterday with Lunch. Lunch.

Late lunch.

Late lunch, early dinner. And they asked us that question. Mm-hmm. What are we looking forward to in 2026? And we both said, or I said, well, freedom. We just, you letting go of a lot of stuff, but also some financial freedom that we haven't had in the 37 years we've been married.

Yeah, we've been carrying our baggage.

Yeah, I mean, you've come close to getting the baggage off, but we never were 100%, and so this is definitely gonna put us in that 100% category. Um, so I think there's freedom about, about that part of it. Uh, I also feel as though I told you already the someday word is removed from our vocabulary. I don't want that word because it's like a maybe to me, and I never really liked maybe, by the way. Either yes or you're no. Maybe tend to be more nos than they are yeses. But, um, I don't, I don't want that to be a part of my 2026. If I say I'm going to be traveling, I want to travel. If I want a new car, I want a new car. And, you know, we just have to learn, um, how we're going to get that, uh, with, you know, to all maintaining a debt freedom. So we have to set aside money to do that. We have to set aside money to travel. But we also figured out what we were going to budget when we do, yeah, you know, get to that stage, that next stage. Um, it's a different kind of budgeting, right?

It's, it's setting aside money to, for a specific thing, event, whether we're traveling or we're getting like a new car or whatever. Then when we have it, we go get it, or we go, when we have it, we, we go somewhere.

We have, yeah, we have the money, we go and we do it. Now you don't feel, there's a, there's a relief in doing it at that point because you, it's, it's satisfying to you. You know, you achieved it. It's satisfying to you, and you didn't have to go into debt to do it.

So what are, what are some of your other goals or aspirations for 2026?

I, I mean, it's more of a full charge, um, you know, doing more of the podcasting consistently, uh, looking at ways that we can improve upon it, looking at ways to build our followers coming up with various topics or interviewing people, really taking this particular platform and really moving forward with it. I think the few people that do follow us have said, have provided us with some great commentary and how they definitely see the dynamics between the two of us.

Yeah, I mean, I want to take that, I want to take that to a different level too, from whether it's a workshop or an event, and then also the interviews of other people, starting the interview process of doing that.

So really it's expanding this whole, this whole network that we've decided to, to plunge into. What about you?

Well, one of the first things I want to get completed after we get moved in is the is getting my audiobook released on that and really building this together and figuring out what that is. I still, I still want to coach. I still want to do coaching, but I think it's going to be more of a volunteer type situation where I can help others, whether it's through the church or even, um, I know the church has a tie-in with recently released prisoners who are trying to get their feet back on the ground, so if I can coach more in a nonprofit group setting is what I'm really looking, looking to establish this year.

That would be, that would be really good. Yeah, that would be phenomenal. I think with us, with me and the church that we're going to now, it's more or less exploring some of the other options and opportunities that are available, um, that you feel you can make You can offer something for and that, you know, you're contributing in a different way. I definitely am looking to figure that out.

Yeah, they talked about mission trips today.

Yeah. And we both looked at each other.

So I'm not sure we're ready. I think it's something that we would want to do someday. Oh, whoops. That's the wrong word. Yeah, it's the wrong word. I think it's something that we want to do. I don't know if it's this year or next year.

Yeah.

You know, that's, that's the thing. I don't know if we're quite ready, if we need to explore a little bit more of what's actually involved in that, um, yet. So there's a few new programs coming out that I think that we'll get involved here, definitely locally right now, and then we'll figure out the next phase.

Where that, where that next phase is, because what was it? Was it one mission to— I can't remember the country, but it's a 20-hour flight. And we both looked at each other. 20 hours is a long time.

Well, I mean, the one in, um, uh, I can't remember the other one. The other one in, I think, um, oh well, I don't remember, some somewhere else in Africa. Yeah, look, the pamphlet's right there.

Oh yeah, it's all the way over there.

Okay, but yeah, so the other one was once you got there, I don't know how long it took to get there, but then you had to take a 10-hour bus ride 2-hour boat ride across the lake.

And it's, um, that was Guam. That was no Guyana. It was Guyana.

Okay.

And I remember, and you looked and said, what? You have to take a 10-hour bus ride.

I mean, look, it's, it's, you're there to help people. So, so I don't think it's, I don't think those kind of that sacrifice is too much to ask for to do it, but you have to be ready for it.

I think you have to be. You know, open, open for that. I think this year one of the bigger things is going to be, um, our youngest is meeting a milestone in his life and that he's turning 30.

And so we're gonna have all three in the 30s. There'll be 30-somethings, which is funny.

But yeah, so, um, doing something to celebrate that milestone. Um, that's going to be it, our adventure for this year. It could be just your adventure with your son. It wouldn't necessarily be with me, and that, that's perfect.

Well, you did that with our daughter when she turned 30 last year.

I did, I did, I did a girl—

you had the spa day.

We did, we did the girl stuff.

Yeah.

Um, so yeah, but that, and that was great. That was a lot of one-on-one, and it was great.

It Only if you could have talked.

I got sick towards the end, but it was okay.

Lost your voice.

I lost my voice. And when that happens, forget it. It's— I just—

Can you imagine this? Losing her voice?

Very quiet. It's a very quiet home.

It's a different experience.

It's a very quiet home. So yeah, so is that— those are the things you're looking forward to?

Yeah, I'm looking— I'm looking forward to that. I'm looking forward to traveling. I'm going to— I know our first trip is to San Diego. For the first ultra event in 2026.

Yep.

So it'll be good to reconnect with our friends because it— when was the last one? Was in October. That's—

we went to Knoxville.

I mean, it's almost 6 months between, between them this time because the holiday time really throws everything off. So yeah, so I'm very—

this is a little later because last year we did it in February.

Yeah, late January, early February.

So this one's a little— it's pushing out another 30 days before we get together. So it'll be nice. It's always good when we go to those events.

You get very energized.

Yeah. You get very energized. You get very stoked.

You realize how grateful for you are to be surrounded by others. Same with like-minded.

Everybody striving for the different things, but striving.

Just striving to make a difference and to contribute to this world, right?

And, and improve their own lives and figure out how to, how to do all of that. It's, it's, it's always interesting, it's always fun, and it's always great meeting up with other people that you've seen but you didn't have the opportunity necessarily to go and catch up with and find out all the goody things about it, but then you do. And you're like, did you know I met this guy? We've seen him many, many times.

Well, we'd love to hear what you are doing this new year and what your plans are and how cluttered or not cluttered your environment is. So on that note, we should probably edit this.

But we won't.

Until next time. See ya. Bye. Bye.