Box It. Bag It. Keep It. Trash It.

It has been quite some time! I’m happy to report we finished Oz the Great and Powerful, and Harper got his pancake breakfast—and he couldn't have cared less. Now we have less than one month left of school, and honestly, I’m ready for it to be over. Sure, daycare costs, which I’m already a slave to, will increase, but I won’t have to look at a sight word list for another three months. That’s a release I am in great need of.

These past months have been busy—and quite frankly hectic—for us: we've been through a move, got a new-to-us car, both kids are in a sport at the same time, and experienced the death of a dear family pet and the death of a family member. Parent-teacher conferences prove to be a challenge, and it looks like we’re going to go through an ADD evaluation again with the Harp Man.

Since everything has been so chaotic, and I can only expect it to be more so as they get older, I have decided, after about a year of thought, to try to head to the minimalist direction. I have many reasons for this, and as time passes, I feel these reasons more deeply.

Before I moved, I was renting my mother’s house. Before she moved, my grandma had moved in at one point but had since passed, and a lot of her things were still there. My things were there; my kids’ things were there, my sister’s things were there, and still a good deal of my mom’s things were still there. I felt like, and my mom commented that, I was living in a storage locker. It’s been almost six months since I moved, and the house still sits, waiting for us to tackle this daunting task.

And then my step-grandpa passed away, and I can see the look of being overwhelmed on my mom and stepdad’s faces. He lived in a good-sized house, and there is a lifetime of possessions that they have to go through. My grandparents’ house, where the pack rat herself still lives, at a clear-headed and able-bodied ninety years old—get ’em, Grams!—is overflowing with…with…I don’t even know what. Newspapers mostly.

My mom and stepdad also live in a decently sized home and have a rather large barn to boot. Mom has been on a furniture-hoarding spree—“I need a bigger house!” I just heard her say a few days ago—and the barn is filled with old furniture, desks and such from Ross’s old practice, my sister’s stuff, and soon to be whatever my tiny apartment can’t hold of my own stuff.

My dad’s house is no different. Before my stepmom passed, she was on a big estate sale/auction/garage sale kick where she bought up lots of stuff for cheap and resold it on eBay. But of all the mountains of stuff left over, no one has the time or energy to try to get any money’s worth out of it all. Not to mention there’s still a lot of her things and her parents’ things lingering about.

So at first, I was just overwhelmed with the amount of stuff everyone has, myself included, and I felt the need to make these simpler. But then I started seeing how it was affecting my kids.

As a child, if you wanted to throw something of mine away, it was the end of the world. I needed it; I loved it; it had feelings, and I had to keep it! My kids have so much junk, when I ask them if they want to get rid of something, or even threaten to throw everything away as a reverse psychology maneuver to get them to clean, they are pretty much fine with it. And what we have gone through together and sorted out for garage sales or donations, they have never once looked back and regretted it. That speaks volumes.

But these things do have purpose, don't they? I have to have the latest thing because it makes my life simpler. But I can't get rid of the old thing, because what if the new thing is temporarily out of commission and I need to use the old thing until the new thing is broken? And don't I need more than twenty pairs of pants? They are different styles for specific occasions, and I have to have a particular look at all (none) of the functions I go to. 

 I can justify everything I own, but it's an uphill and empty battle that I am no longer willing to wage.

Consumerism: it really is a sickness, and I have to break free of its burdens on my mind and body. I don’t ever want my kids to think that they need something just because it’s the newest upgrade, so-and-so has it, and he/she won’t be cool unless he/she has one, and I especially don’t want them to feel an attachment to just things because it might remind them of someone or something or because it make make them feel guilty or like they would hurt the feelings of the person who gave it to them. Now, I don’t think having one or two small items of the former is that bad. It is hard to rid of things like that, but they have to have a purpose, a use.  

I knew consumerism was an issue before I started working in advertising, but in the short time I have been in it, I realize how much I've hated it. No one needs these things, but it’s my responsibility to make them think that they do. But I don’t regret this move. I needed a job quick-like, and I took it thinking that it would be a good experience. It has been. I've learned some things that are valuable to my career path, and it shed light in myself that badly needed revealing.

But mostly I want, and I want my kids, to experience the world outside of these holes we live in surrounded by a bunch of crap. And to learn the things in life that are really important. And whatever those things are, what they aren't is stuff.

I don’t expect this to happen overnight. Since I've been thinking about it for a year or more, I've also been going through little cleaning spurts every few months and clearing out things. I will continue to do that, but I think I will be a little more aggressive and realistic of what I will never use again and what I will never need. And I don’t ever expect it to be perfect.

These are just a few of things that have been weighing on me enough over the years to finally put a name to it and start moving toward improving it. This is how I feel and what I think is a good move for my family. 

And on that note, come out and see me Mother’s Day weekend. I’ll be having an excellent garage sale—with lots of stuff that you probably don't need!


In the meantime, here's a song I haven't been able to get outta my head all week. Be advised: there is language, if that ain't your thang.