So…lots of people have asked about the packing. For the record, for better or worse, it is now complete, and the bins are awkwardly waiting in our friends’ living room (see last post for that lovely photo).
Here is some insight on the PROCESS of packing up a 3 bedroom house into only the necessary items needed for 4 people to move to another continent for the next 3 years. Yes, my head exploded many times! Most days I hit my decision-making limit well before lunchtime.
A year ago, I read this amazing book by Jen Hatmaker called 7. It chronicles her quest to reduce the excess in her life, not just the excess of physical things, but all the excess that was taking away her time, distracting her, and adding stress to her life. I talked about it briefly with a few good friends, how I thought it would be so great to do a similar challenge. Not because sticking to an arbitrary number of clothes in the closet or ingredients in cooking is meaningful, but to really expose my weaknesses and look at the way I spend my life a little differently. For perspective.
Little did I imagine that I am now living that out in a serious way.
If you know me well, you know the rush I get from purging/organizing (I know, crazy). So, imagine that on a grand scale: trying to deal with 10 years of stuff, kid stuff, etc. Naively, I looked at this challenge with some pride and actually thought it would be fun!
It lead to questions like:
Ever counted the number of shirts you own? Go do it. It’s probably WAY MORE than you were prepared to admit. You might be surprised; I was. I’m not a shopper, and I’m one of those people who LIKES to weed through and has a bag for giveaway constantly filling in the closet. I’ve tried all the tricks. I do the turning the hangers backwards for six months until an item is worn and get rid of whatever is not turned around trick ALL THE TIME. I was not even close.
As we started to fill the bins, reality hit pretty hard. I kept having to lay out what I thought would fit, and then cut it in half. And then cut it again.
Maybe only 7 of everything is the way to go…
Our house looked like a bomb went off inside a hurricane. When all of your “stuff” comes out of its drawers and off the shelves, there is no containing the madness. It multiplies. The carnage is unbelievable. We let the kids play amongst the packing, because really, who would notice if the mess got bigger?
The best part of this is that we have been able to really think about simplifying. Some hard truths began to dawn on me.
Here is where things got painful.
Slowly, I am beginning to grasp the truth that the THINGS are not who I am. This is shallow and I never realized that I secretly believed it. As we moved through the house, I started to keep only the things that kept us happy as a family-and those became the first things on the list for packing. We truly “got down to basics.” For months we lived with maybe a ¼ of what we formerly had. Books on a shelf do not represent how smart we are, or how much we’ve learned. If they are not there (mostly gathering dust, really), I am not somehow diminished.
I think that was my fear. Then I realized that thinking that way exposed my real weakness. I wanted to PROVE something. Like, if someone saw our bookshelves or artwork or whatever, they would be impressed. They would see what we were really about. Our stuff was hiding a whole bunch of insecurity. I actually wondered that if someone needed to borrow some fancy cooking item, for example, and I could not provide it-well, then maybe I was a lousy cook/housekeeper/mom/human.
Ouch.
I am putting that lie right out in the light so it cannot hurt anymore.
It has been a mental shift, most of all. I stored my wedding rings and replaced them with this claddagh ring. It symbolizes love, loyalty, and friendship. It has been a constant reminder of what is truly important right there on my hand as I picked up each item for consideration, or loving wrapped photos for storage, or let go of so much unnecessary stuff.
We also started tackling the other “clutter” in our lives. It has taken much longer than expected to unsubscribe from all the distractions that pop into our lives everyday. We are turning down the volume of all the noise that can pull us away from each other, from spending time with people we love, from quietly sitting with God.
But you know what? It is amazing what you don’t even miss. Please, someone, make a pledge to remind me in three years that not one of the things we are getting rid of ever needs to be replaced!
That space on shelves and blank walls can be beautiful.
That space allows us to breathe easier.
Here is some insight on the PROCESS of packing up a 3 bedroom house into only the necessary items needed for 4 people to move to another continent for the next 3 years. Yes, my head exploded many times! Most days I hit my decision-making limit well before lunchtime.
A year ago, I read this amazing book by Jen Hatmaker called 7. It chronicles her quest to reduce the excess in her life, not just the excess of physical things, but all the excess that was taking away her time, distracting her, and adding stress to her life. I talked about it briefly with a few good friends, how I thought it would be so great to do a similar challenge. Not because sticking to an arbitrary number of clothes in the closet or ingredients in cooking is meaningful, but to really expose my weaknesses and look at the way I spend my life a little differently. For perspective.
Little did I imagine that I am now living that out in a serious way.
If you know me well, you know the rush I get from purging/organizing (I know, crazy). So, imagine that on a grand scale: trying to deal with 10 years of stuff, kid stuff, etc. Naively, I looked at this challenge with some pride and actually thought it would be fun!
It lead to questions like:
- What will I need 3 years from now? (ever tried packing into the future?)
- Have you ever tried eating up all the random stuff in your pantry/freezer? (interesting menus, to be sure)
- On a related note…why am such a food hoarder? (Yes, maybe that was already an obvious character issue to some of you…friends should not let friends stock multiple cans of pumpkin puree in the Springtime! Please, people, next time just hold an intervention!)
- Why do we have 7 Easter baskets?
- How did all of this stuff get in my house?
Ever counted the number of shirts you own? Go do it. It’s probably WAY MORE than you were prepared to admit. You might be surprised; I was. I’m not a shopper, and I’m one of those people who LIKES to weed through and has a bag for giveaway constantly filling in the closet. I’ve tried all the tricks. I do the turning the hangers backwards for six months until an item is worn and get rid of whatever is not turned around trick ALL THE TIME. I was not even close.
As we started to fill the bins, reality hit pretty hard. I kept having to lay out what I thought would fit, and then cut it in half. And then cut it again.
Maybe only 7 of everything is the way to go…
 |
| Ah, the delicate balance between space and weight. This was our process before we got really serious and borrowed the wrestling scale from Paly and started talking in terms ounces, not pounds! |
Our house looked like a bomb went off inside a hurricane. When all of your “stuff” comes out of its drawers and off the shelves, there is no containing the madness. It multiplies. The carnage is unbelievable. We let the kids play amongst the packing, because really, who would notice if the mess got bigger?
The best part of this is that we have been able to really think about simplifying. Some hard truths began to dawn on me.
Here is where things got painful.
Slowly, I am beginning to grasp the truth that the THINGS are not who I am. This is shallow and I never realized that I secretly believed it. As we moved through the house, I started to keep only the things that kept us happy as a family-and those became the first things on the list for packing. We truly “got down to basics.” For months we lived with maybe a ¼ of what we formerly had. Books on a shelf do not represent how smart we are, or how much we’ve learned. If they are not there (mostly gathering dust, really), I am not somehow diminished.
I think that was my fear. Then I realized that thinking that way exposed my real weakness. I wanted to PROVE something. Like, if someone saw our bookshelves or artwork or whatever, they would be impressed. They would see what we were really about. Our stuff was hiding a whole bunch of insecurity. I actually wondered that if someone needed to borrow some fancy cooking item, for example, and I could not provide it-well, then maybe I was a lousy cook/housekeeper/mom/human.
Ouch.
I am putting that lie right out in the light so it cannot hurt anymore.
It has been a mental shift, most of all. I stored my wedding rings and replaced them with this claddagh ring. It symbolizes love, loyalty, and friendship. It has been a constant reminder of what is truly important right there on my hand as I picked up each item for consideration, or loving wrapped photos for storage, or let go of so much unnecessary stuff.
We also started tackling the other “clutter” in our lives. It has taken much longer than expected to unsubscribe from all the distractions that pop into our lives everyday. We are turning down the volume of all the noise that can pull us away from each other, from spending time with people we love, from quietly sitting with God.
But you know what? It is amazing what you don’t even miss. Please, someone, make a pledge to remind me in three years that not one of the things we are getting rid of ever needs to be replaced!
That space on shelves and blank walls can be beautiful.
That space allows us to breathe easier.
