We'll be moving out of our home of nine years next week into a new home just outside the city. The new home is comparable in size to our current one: we'll be losing only 40 square feet or so of living space, but gaining so much more: A quiet street, privacy, a graffiti-free neighborhood, a driveway, a yard. My commute to and from my day job will shrink from twenty miles to just over two, and I'm already excited about gaining several hours of family time every week and the prospect of occasionally biking or running to and from the office. (Yes, a slightly smaller carbon footprint means something to me.)
As much as I'm looking forward to settling in at the new home, the packing process has revealed a lot about my unconscious habits: Even after donating a ton of things we no longer need or use, and after completely filling a junk removal truck with the clutter in the basement, we still have far too much stuff. Naturally, we're keeping a number of things that have sentimental value, and I just can't bring myself to donate some of my books (knowing fully that I'm never going to read them again). We're leaving some of our furniture behind, but there's still too much stuff!
A friend of mine recently quipped that we spend the first half of our lives acquiring junk and the second half trying to get rid of it. So perhaps this is a turning point for me. As Thoreau, would point out, it's time to simplify:
The nation itself, with all its so-called internal improvements, which, by the way are all external and superficial, is just such an unwieldy and overgrown establishment, cluttered with furniture and tripped up by its own traps, ruined by luxury and heedless expense, by want of calculation and a worthy aim, as the million households in the land; and the only cure for it, as for them, is in a rigid economy, a stern and more than Spartan simplicity of life and elevation of purpose.I feel really good about our new house. It's not too small, and not too big. Looking at an article online today about some wildly outrageous homes in the Greater Boston area, I know for sure that we're not overdoing it. (We couldn't afford to anyway!) For now, I'm planning to use the unpacking process as a second screening: another chance to decide to give away, or toss things that have no value and serve no purpose. After all, when it's time for my final move, I can't take any of this stuff with me.
3 comments:
My parents are trying to sell their house, and they have boxes in the basement still packed from the last move—10 years ago! I told them they should just throw all those boxes away without even looking inside, because if you haven't needed or wanted it in 10 years... you really don't need or want it. They disagree.
I go through every 4 months or so because somehow with both grandparents nearby, we accumulate stuff at a rapid pace.
I go through every 4 months and purge because we end up with too many 'things'... having grandparents nearby does NOT help the situation :)
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