My husband and I love our house. We love the neighborhood, our neighbors, and our sanctuary we call our home. With Chris out of work for nearly a year now, we have been making some changes to our house.
One of the biggest changes has been in our basement (more on that in a later post). We used to have separate floors in our house. Chris would spend his spare time in his man cave in the basement and I would spend my time on our main floor. Don't get me wrong, we like hanging out with one another, and of course mealtimes and at night we would be together, but we used to have this notion that we needed our own space. And it wasn't necessarily that we needed to be apart, we just felt we needed to be with our own stuff. After years of accumulating things, we had to devote whole levels of our house to our stuff.
I may have had packrat tendencies, but if so, my mom quickly quelled them when I was younger. We can now joke about the books she gave away that caused me such angst when I found out. Heck, I'm a librarian, books are like air to me. But over the years, I have pared down my possessions. Books used to make up the largest stash of my stuff. I kept favorites that I grew up with and left at my parents' house, I kept all those school books thinking I would re-read them, and I purchased books as an adult because I wanted to be able to reference them if needed in a moment's notice. Dude, I'm telling you; I purchased thousands, even tens of thousands, of books over my lifetime. And not just books, although that probably made of the majority of my possessions, but movies, albums, CDs, chotchkies, photographs, scrapbooks, and so forth.
However, about two years ago, I decided I didn't need all this stuff. Our small house was crammed with so much stuff that it actually prevented Chris and I from spending time together. And it seemed that the time we did spend together was spent cleaning, organizing, and moving all that stuff (and with many cross words shouted at each other too!) So, to combat my growing frustrations, I started giving away stuff. It was hard at first to part with my memories; I had an emotional attachment to so many things. Souvenirs from my travels, books from my archaeological career, books from my childhood, and even photographs eventually found their way to the thrift store, friends, or the trash. And with each load that left our house I felt lighter, freer, and calmer.
My next step (after I thought I'd pared my belongings down) was to convince my husband, who was 100 times more attached to his tons of stuff, to also release his grip. And last summer was the culmination of our release. We had a huge yardsale that consisted mainly of books, music, chotchkies, his models, some toys, and some furniture. And lo and behold, people not only dug our stuff, but they wanted to buy it! We made over $1000. I'm talking twelve hundred dollars! Just on a yard sale!
After that, it became even easier to let go of things. I'd like to think that both Chris and I no longer need stuff to make us happy. Don't get me wrong, I love my computer, hard drives, clothes, and would absolutely hate to have them disappear. But, I'm happier in the realization that what is more important to me is my relationships. And do you know what happened once we got rid of the stuff? Suddenly the two of us could share a tiny office (that before had been crammed with my stuff) and spend even more quality time together (and way fewer cross words with one another!) Now we only have to spend a couple of hours to clean our entire house. And to tell the truth, I don't miss a damn thing I gave away. How's that for peace and happiness! I wish you peace and happiness.
P.S. As an update, I was curious how many books I now own. Care to guess? I counted 62 (ah ah ah, as the Count would say). This includes high school yearbooks, cookbooks, a few sentimental children's books, and some sentimental archaeology books as well as favorite literary classics. In my opinion, why pay for a book when you can check it out of the library!
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