🤼‍♀️ Fight Club

     I came to a realization today. I’ve been fighting with myself for quite awhile, maybe as long as five + years. I am fighting, suffering virtual bruises and abrasions, aches and pains. Struggles so strenuous I sometimes feel like I’m wading through thick, sucking mud. Some steps cause one foot to slide sideways while the other is stuck so firmly it can’t move in any direction. It’s been exhausting!

     So what has caused me so much consternation? Well, it’s complicated. For most of my adult life, at least my life since I got my first real paying job, I have been captivated with what most of us have been or are preoccupied with, obtaining stuff. Lots and lots of stuff! I am not now nor have I ever been a hoarder. Mostly because during my lifetime I’ve moved, a lot. Nineteen times before I was 45, most of those moves happening between my 18th and 40th birthdays. When you move that often, you try not to acquire so much stuff because you know you will have to sort through it to pack it up and then unpack it and put it away. That said, I’ve been in my home for a little over twenty years. I love my home and the thought of leaving it someday, well, just overwhelms me.

     But, I look around my house and see so much stuff; things I don’t use, need or (whisper) want anymore. My fight with myself is because I  need to simplify, down-size, reduce, decrease, scale-back. I want less to maintain, less to keep clean, less to have to sort through and possibly pack up. 

     I have equipment I got when I took up stained glass. I have a grinding wheel and tools and lots and lots of glass; water glass, etched glass, bull’s eye, streaky and opalescent glass in blues and greens and reds and purples. I don’t make stained glass anymore because the arthritis in my back keeps me from standing for long periods of time but I still have the accouterments. I have dolls I made out of gloves. Tiles and tools from when I took up alcohol ink painting. I have fabrics and skeins of yarn and spools of ribbon and pins and glues and faux flowers. Hard to believe but I sorted through boxes last summer and threw away bags full of (say it with me) STUFF. Yet I look around and still see more I could discard.

     Don’t get me started on my master closet. Ugh! Our master closet was originally supposed to be a small master en suite but the previous owner wanted a large master closet more. The plumbing is roughed out but that’s all. (Side note: When our granddaughter was maybe two or three she had occasion to see our master closet. She walked in and in an awestruck voice said “Mommy, they have a walk in closet.” It was so cute. I didn’t know what a walk in closet was until I was in my twenties.) Anyway, our closet is ceiling to floor – full! Know how you buy something online but when it arrives it doesn’t fit or it’s the wrong color or doesn’t even closely resemble what it looked like on the website but you figure it’s too big of a hassle to send it back? I have some of those. Then there is the sentimental collection. Gifts. Things you got from someone you love but just know it’s either a re-gift or something they got last minute with hardly a thought given to whether you would want it or even like it. Are we thinking they might ask about it later or want to see it sometime? Trust me, they don’t remember giving the gift in the first place. Why are we keeping them? There are hats we wore in high school, shoes that fit-ah twenty five years ago. Matching fleece shirts I made but we haven’t worn for at least—fifteen years? Photo albums, craft supplies, Yankee candles- some of them empty. (What are we saving the jar for? I don’t think they magically refill with scented wax.) And clothes, so many clothes we don’t wear and haven’t for years. We have old financial records and greeting cards and stories we’ve written; a children’s book I wrote and my husband illustrated.

     In the basement, there are empty boxes that something came in that we keep just in case we have to take it to a store for repair sometime. How long since that was a thing? I have coloring books and crayons, colored pencils and pens. And don’t get me started on toys from fast food restaurants and “collectible” action figures from TV shows. STUFF, STUFF, STUFF! TOO MUCH STUFF! If we ever do decide to down-size, it will take three years just to get rid of enough to be able to start to down-size.

     So I continue to fight with myself. I get anxious. I worry that someone will have to clear it out after I’m gone and no longer care what happens to it. Unfair job to leave to some unsuspecting soul. I know it should be gone but it seems like such an uphill task. I need to get started because I’m sure if do I’ll feel less anxious whenever I go into any closet or into the “ junk” room(s). Less debris to clean up if we should find the down-size home of our dreams. Easier if we are prepared, right? Oh, did I mention the extra furniture?