Downsizing in later life is about far more than making space. Retired counsellor and supervisor Chris Kell reflects on attachment, identity and the surprising lightness that can emerge when we loosen our grip on the things we once thought defined us.

As a schoolgirl I was always good at “comprehension”: that exercise in English lessons where the class had to edit a piece of text down to its essentials to show that we had understood it. Well here it is again, but this time an exercise in divesting life’s inessentials to clarify the transition from young-old to old-old, conducted through the physicality of a house move – my furnishings and life effects, everything from biros to beds, linen to Lasting Powers of Attorney, paired down to basics. I have closed the door on my adult home and its accoutrements in Hertfordshire to replace it with a dwelling half the size in London, a move completely appropriate for this older stage of life. Downsizing – and now what?

I don’t like throwing things away or even selling them. I could say something about its effect on the planet, but the real challenge of redistributing furniture and other larger possessions has been to divest them of their meaning for me. A chest which I had filled with toys in a previous house; a chair which I had lovingly re-covered; a lamp that had looked so perfect in a hallway – none of which will fit or are necessary in my new home. They will all have to go. And even when I take a breath and, importantly, take advice from friends and do the deed, there are the books, all 750 of them, staring at me from bookshelves, letting me know in just one look where I had been when I read them and what the sensation of that reading had been. To give them away would be to ditch a large part of my history and my identity and, dare I say it, my own self-enlargement. It is not an exaggeration to say that books have been my steady life companions, examples of my somewhat erratic intellectual development, and reliable solace and wisdom. They at least could accompany me to wherever my new, and possibly last, home might be.

I would like to be the kind of person who is able to visualise things in advance accurately enough to make a decent guess at how I will feel in the future. Sadly, I am not that person. So, with only fond attachment to guide me, I moved to London with at least 20 boxes of books under my arms (so to speak) determined that at least one whole wall in my new place would restore each of them to their rightful place. This was not to be. I lay awake on my first night and knew immediately, without a flicker of doubt, that every book would have to go and, in that knowing, that it was completely right. I didn’t need those books after all. They were not my history, my identity, my intellectual mirror. They were, above all, large wads of paper inside card which would take up precious space, and I needed the space much more than the books. If you’d told me that I would ever, ever feel that way about books, I’d have thought you were mad.

So, this has turned out to be just one more transition in life – perhaps almost the last. Downsizing has had all the characteristics of any other transition: the letting go, the liminal space, the revisiting of an attachment neurosis, the re-grouping around a new identity. Two months in and I am now enjoying every minute of city life, excited to make new friends and to explore unknown paths. Books are something to read on a Kindle, bulky furniture goes to the Donation Hub, and a new old-old butterfly cautiously emerges from the chrysalis.

Chris Kell (78)

Chris Kell worked for several decades as a counsellor and supervisor in both the NHS and private practice until her retirement from the profession in 2018. It was my great privilege to benefit from her wisdom, kindness and thoughtful counsel for more than twenty years.

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All rights reserved © Copyright Chris Kell 2026. Unauthorised use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from the author of this post is strictly prohibited. Author contact via website Contact page. Website version and main image © Copyright Therapy Place Bristol 2026. Article published August 2026