In preparing to sell our home, we put 75% of our “stuff” in storage. It’s so enjoyable to have the open space and I want our new home to be just as open. Now that our house is under contract and we are looking for a new home (we are moving out of the suburbs and into the city, closer to my daughter’s school), I have been thinking about that dark storage container and what’s inside. Do I want any of it back?
I like the energy and creative space in our house now that most things are gone. We have room to open a huge roll of white paper and doodle away for an hour. I can let my daughter play with the pots and pans because we literally only have one of each. I am pulling out my camera more since there is less clutter to put away. I can breathe free.
I rather doubt that our wedding china, which we have used once in 9+ years of marriage, is adding value to our lives by sitting forgotten on a shelf in a closet. All the wrapping paper and gift bags I’ve accumulated since who knows when? Recycle those. Why am I keeping so many “just in case” items? Toiletries, linens, clothes hardly ever worn, kitchen appliances rarely used, cookbooks never consulted? Would I really ever start wearing that perfume, get dressed up to go to playgroup, and turn into a Martha Stewart-esqe baker or chef? Nope. And come on. Those binders from all the career development seminars I attended are going to be outdated by the time I return to work. The blanket sleeper of a coat that took up a box all by itself (along with all the other sweaters I didn’t even get to wear this winter) symbolizes wishful thinking that we lived somewhere that I could wear such a fashion no-no. No wonder it was so easy to pack it all so quickly. We don’t need most of it. (I DO NEED those books! Books are a huge exception.)
I don’t want to waste my time or our money on more stuff. I want a valuable, fulfilling life without all the clutter. I aquire new things that seem necessary upon every trip to Target… holiday decorations, kids’ clothing, and toys mostly. In my vision of our new home, I see neatly arranged cabinets and open space. It can’t be too far of a stretch because we already have neatly arranged cabinets in our current home. I just want fewer old coffee mugs in them.
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