Since it is spring I have de-cluttering, cleaning and redecorating on my mind.
Twin visions dance in my head. In the future, I’d love a smaller, more manageable home, here in the Great White North i.e. being in a position to sell our current home in the years ahead. For now, I’d love to create a home environment that supports everyone in the family. Including me. That means mom is not a slave to the house, peeps. That is a pretty tall order considering the current state of affairs, but I’m optimistic it can be done provided I enlist some help (do you see the potential for a vicious cycle here?) Husband will serve as devil’s advocate, no doubt, and sharp rock against which I throw myself. If I could get him to take his shoes off in the house, close the dresser drawers or find the kitchen sink (never mind the dishwasher)… well, never mind. That is wishful thinking.
What I am sure of is that I do not want to spend my life energy on maintaining any more stuff than necessary. (I’ve given up on the wish of not spending my life energy on picking up after others. Easier not to dwell on a pipe dream.)
Of course, this brings one to that essential contradiction in life: the balance between stuff we need and stuff we don’t. To wit: the February 2011 De-Clutter Your Life issue of O Magazine. “Enough already with the stuff that doesn’t enhance who you really are” (“What I Know for Sure”, page 212). I couldn’t agree more. At the same time, the magazine is stuffed with suggestions for more things to buy (The O List, Look What we Found!, Great Buys Under $100, not to mention page after page of ads for still more stuff.) And here we have the essential contradiction that so many of us face. What to keep? What to toss? What to acquire? What to invest our life energy in?
This is the question I intend to examine in the weeks and months ahead. For now, I’ve thought of one question to help me stay on task: is this something that I want to drag with me to my next house?
(First posted at my back-up blog at Blogger.com, March 27, 2011)