Shedding Stuff and Moving Forward

wine glasses

I felt the need to tidy my house long before the I read Marie Kondo’s book The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up. Last year I took the room by room approach to discarding. I went through my drawers and closets carefully and methodically. The first pass I removed the easy stuff like clothes that didn’t fit and items that were well worn and generally unflattering. A month or so later I took another stab at the piles and removed even more. The second time through I parted with stuff I initially hesitated to donate.

I always thought of myself as a minimalist at heart, but as I looked at the bags filing the trunk I had to wonder if that was really true. I discovered that I was likely to hold on to things I might use someday and too sentimental to get rid of items that were no longer useful or relevant to my every day life.

Last year I removed a large china cabinet from our dining room and immediately breathed a little deeper. I’m not sure who I was kidding, but I’m not the kind of girl who is going to host formal dinner parties or prepare elaborate meals. Nope. That’s just not me.

I boxed up some stuff, donated a bunch and moved the rest to a curio cabinet in our entry way. I felt relieved that one large piece of furniture was gone, but every day I looked at that cabinet and sighed. It was constantly dusty and in need of a deep cleaning. This was partly due to its location at the bottom of the stairs, but also due to the fact that I never touched any of the items inside that cabinet.

So every day, multiple times a day, I passed that cabinet and thought I should clean it, I should dust it, I should do something about it. But every day I did the million other things I wanted to do and rarely, if ever, got around to doing anything about it.

Why did I have a cabinet full of stuff I never used? Did I love the items placed so delicately on those shelves? If you took the entire piece of furniture away would I even remember what was inside of it?

Last week I told my husband I wanted to get rid of that cabinet. The whole piece of furniture and just about everything inside of it. He pointed to one or two items he cared about and told me to get rid of the rest.

The next day I placed that cabinet on a towel and dragged it out the door. I literally dragged it through each room and then lifted it, (all by myself), over the threshold and out of the house.

When I walked back inside I couldn’t believe how open the space now felt. I dusted and cleaned all along the wall and floor and breathed a giant sigh of relief.

I am not the girl who displays pretty bowls and vases. That is my grandmother, my mother-in-law and my mother. I am not the kind of girl who wants to dust china she never uses and crystal that never comes out of the case.

Right now I am the kind of girl who has two children constantly running under foot. The kind of girl who wants space for them to chase and skip and play follow the leader. I am the kind of girl who doesn’t want to spend her few spare minutes dusting and cleaning. I am the kind of girl who, quite frankly, is allergic to dust.

Maybe one day we will host parties and eat on china and drink wine from sparkling glasses. Maybe one day we will host holidays and have our children and grand children over to celebrate special occasions. Maybe one day we will have too much space, as our children leave the nest, and the rooms are void of colorful toys and children’s voices.

But for now I want nothing but more space. More space to move and breathe and run and giggle. More space for the people that matter, not for things that never come out of the box.

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