A Dor-cumentary: Pre trip musings......STUFF: Just too much of it!

How crap brings about enlightening moments....

While gathering, sorting and packing our crap up for sale/give away, we of course came across many items that I’ve held on to since my children’s babyhood. Things like books, the Fisher Price farm, whinnie the pooh blocks, nap mats. All things I thought I needed to physically hold on to so I could hold on to their babyhoods and not lose it. As we came across the books, we reread them. Books like I Love You as Much, Chugga Chugga Choo Choo, Time to Say Goodnight and Jamberry. Rereading these baby books to them made me realize a very important thing. I always thought I missed those baby years terribly. Not the obviously unpleasant parts like dirty diapers (though I never found them that terrible) and sleepless nights (which I *did* find quite terrible). But I always thought I had longed to have my kids be babies and toddlers again. Longed to be able to hold them with one arm around them on my hip, to burp them, to carry their tiny sweet squishy bodies around and smooch them until some outside distraction made me stop.

Well, come to find out, brace yourselves, shocking news here: I don’t long for those days like I thought I did!!! It’s quite a revelation for me! Turns out I’m more than thrilled with my children at the stages and ages they’re at now. I’ve learned I don’t want them to be babies again (as if that could ever happen anyway). I love love love who they’ve turned out to be and am so excited about who they will go on and continue to become. As I was sitting there reading those baby books to them, I had an important lesson in learning to appreciate the present and not keep looking back to the past longingly. I learned to appreciate them for who they are now. I learned to appreciate life for what it is now. I’m so grateful for that! I have a feeling that if it wasn’t for this purge it might have been a l-o-n-g time before I learned this lesson, if at all. Boy, would I have been missing out on living life in the moment!

I had the honor of holding a 6 week old baby yesterday. Oh the smell, the squishiness, the lightness! But you know what, I had no longing. I enjoyed every moment with her, but I did not for one second wish I had one that age, nor did I wish my kids were that age again. We’ve moved on people! And we’re thrilled and exhilarated about it to boot.

The other, maybe more obvious, benefit to all this purging, is the light feeling that accompanies it. The release. The freedom. The openness it allows one to experience. Since I’ve now made room in my life for new things (and no, I don’t mean ‘stuff’), new things can now enter my life with ease and much less resistance. That’s a good thing by the way :-)

Rediscovery......

You know what’s amazing? When you remove even just 70% of the crap, um, oops, I meant, toys (!) - kids end up playing with long lost and forgotten crap, um, I mean, toys. Kind of like that whole can’t see the forest through the trees thing. My kids have rediscovered those funky letter foam blocks (you know, the kind that can form somewhat of a foam mat or soft surface). They have spent hours, yes, I do mean hours, today playing with them. Building buildings, paving roads, creating science labs. Give a kid time and space (and removes surpufluous items from their lives!) and they can come up with the world!

Kitchen junky.........

Admittedly, I AM a kitchen gadget/tool junkie. I full on confess to it. But, even given that fact, exactly how many strainer colander thingies does a human being need I ask??? What was I thinking?! As I go through my kitchen and pull out loads and loads of STUFF to sort into 3 piles: Take to the RV, store away and give away - I really realize (can you say that? sounds funny) that I don’t need, nor have I ever needed, a great majority of it all! OK, so maybe I used 90% of the items in this kitchen at least once, but really, the RV pile is pretty small. That means, to me anyway, that most of what occupies my tremendous amount of cabinet space is superfluous! Another realization just hit me though - a lot of what I’m parting with is for cooking, real live cooking with heat. We don’t do much of that anymore for the most part, so if it doesn’t serve a ‘raw’ purpose - mostly, it’s gone baby!

So much for the list.........

OK, I give up. I simply cannot finish a room! I get to the point where I just stand there staring at stuff in various piles. I stare and stare hoping that somehow they’ll pack themselves......and I walk out in disgust. So far, my new system seems to be working better. Do as much as I can tolerate in one area, then move on to a different one. Say! That closet looks like a good thing to tackle now. Sick of sorting towels and sheets? Let’s try the kitchen! Hopefully this system will pan out and all will get done eventually. So much for scratching things off my list as they get done. At this rate, I’ll only get to scratch things out when we’re walking out the door for the year.....

Mission Accomplished!

As proof, I offer up these photos.

First, the notorious junk drawer.......It's EMPTY!!!!