I almost always hesitate to make any New Year’s resolutions. In fact, I never do. But this year, I didn’t want to make a resolution so much as to just clean out my life. You know, New Year, New Minimal Life- a very clean simple looking life? I wanted to walk into my house and look around with less distraction and more serenity. A place that feels like a sanctuary and less of a hoarder’s paradise. I also felt that the distraction in my home was pulling me away for my two-year-old twins. Instead of feeling fully engaged, my eyes often case the place for chaos and things to add to the every growing to-do list. I couldn’t live another year like this especially since I work from home.
One thing that has become increasingly apparent as I’ve gotten older, is my need for less. In my youth, acquiring more was an obsession. It made me feel like more to have more. It also somehow made me think I was filling the void inside. It never did, but I kept acquiring ‘stuff” the way old ladies acquire cats or kids acquire colds. Now, the more I have, the more stressed and crazy I feel. If I were to be truthful with myself, I should get rid of every single item in my home and start from scratch. This seems like a crazy thing to say. I mean, after all, isn’t the stuff we collect over our life, a reflection of our experiences and social standing? If I remove them, will I forget that important moment or will the money I had worked so hard to spend on that item go to waste? “But so and so gave me that in 2007 for such and such!” These are seriously the insane thoughts that went through my head. I think the real fear comes from my own insecurity that if I get rid of it and need something like it in the future, I may not be able to afford it, so I better keep it just in case.
After countless conversations with myself to the point that I thought I may need some serious counseling, I knew that the only way I could obtain this minimal life I pined over in designer magazines was to let go. To realize that stuff is meaningless. None of it makes me happy. If I really need it, I can buy it again. Knowing that chances are, I will never think of it or need it again.
Thus, the purging began. My closets, my drawers, my girls’ closets and their drawers, the bathroom cabinets, and the kitchen cabinets. Jason and I demolished a huge piece of furniture and donated mulitple Prius’s full of other items to GoodWill which made me feel good (no pun intended). And as I looked around, my space seemed bigger. I actually felt each room take a breath or was it my own breath? Regardless, I looked around at my new space with a whole new outlook. Wow! My creative juices started to flow in a way that hadn’t for months, maybe even years. I became inspired by a space that had longed for less, that was begging me for less. And when I succomed to its’ need, it gave me mine- a clear mind full of infinate possiblities and a whole new pespective, literally.