Thursday, October 29, 2009

29 on 29

Not much to say but I can't let the 29th month go by without something.

I find I am walking thru the house more and more saying "why do I need this, why do I have this, why am I keeping this?" Clutter. The house is cluttered and I would like to solve that by getting rid of things I haven't laid eyes on in years. Literally years.

When Jim and I moved to Boston from down here it was a fresh start. We moved from a large townhouse here into a small cramped apartment there...that luckily had a nice basement to store our boxes of stuff. We found a nice country house to move in to and it was rambling. Lots of space. We unpacked a lot of things, however there were still a few boxes that were left in the new basement awaiting their turn. Then we moved here. From lots of space to cramped space again. Those poor boxes of mostly books and memorablia that got moved from one home to another, three moves now and it has yet to be unpacked.

Guess what. I don't think I need them anymore. I have to get up the nerve to actually move them out the door, but I don't think I will miss them much. They haven't seen light of day in about 10 or more years.

I want to break the cycle of keeping things. Of keeping more than I need and maybe learn to live with what I have. It is an important lesson and intellectually I can achieve it but realistically I find myself ignoring it.

What to do with the pots and pans I almost never use, but have in the cabinet "just in case" I might need them. I may start in the kitchen to get rid of extra things. I have glass jars from speghetti under the sink. Clean and with lids. Why? Well, I am not sure, just because I hated the thought of throwing them away. Now, granted, they did help when I had a live mouse in the washing machine and needed some way to transport him outside. He ran right in that and I put the lid on and whisked him to the park and freedom. But for the most part the jars have sat there...waiting....for me to do something with them. I will. I will.

And my thoughts today turned to Jim many times. Replaying some of that terrible day in my head and wondering why and feeling like I have come so far and yet hardly far at all.

2 comments:

Unknown said...

Hello, Betsy,

Time is an amazing thing, as are our memories -- how we can be here today but be remembering something as if it were just yesterday.

I'm not sure if I've mentioned this before, but I determined that post-50, I would focus on using up and giving away stuff. My season change in life still includes some of my children's "stuff" though not very much.

I, too, have not always stayed focused on this reduction, but have definitely seen an improvement in less stuff/more room to breath AND the ability to move on to other things that I REALLY want to do.

One last thought is that there are lots of people in need, who would benefit from the extras we have stored...Blessings on your weekend,

Rach said...

Hi Betsy,

It's Halloween tonight and you and Jim came to mind. I wanted to let you know I was thinking of you this evening and hope all is well.

I understand the desire to declutter and keep moving. We moved boxes from our apartment to our first house to this house and I've NEVER opened them. In fact, I don't even remember what is in them. My thought process is I've lived without whatever it is for eight years, so I probably don't need it. And yet, I'm afraid to get rid of them, "just in case". Good luck with everything.

HUGS!