Downsizing Life

Gosh, has it really been a week since my last post?  And here I vowed that I was going to keep on top of my blog this time around.  What an absolutely crazy and hectic week.  Ever had life just get away from you for a while?  That’s been this week, between moving out of our place in Vermont, and moving into our new place in Massachusetts and all that comes with moving, I’m surprised that half the time I even know what month it is, much less the day. 

While in the midst of all this moving though I can say that I’ve grown to appreciate downsizing our life.  I’ve heard it said that if you get a big enough space, you’ll find a way to fill it.  Be that empty fridge space, an unused garage, or a 4 bedroom home… I may not have put much faith into that saying before, but after this move I guess they might have been right.  I think we should take the time to reflect on our lives more often, to consider what, and who, we really need.  Pregnancy has shed an entirely new form of “not caring” to my life right now as my focus and priorities are shifting and items I may have held on to previously I’ve been more than happy to toss out or give away.  And the stress of some relationships that I may have been willing to put up with before, I now have less tolerance for either the childish actions or the relationships themselves.  While it may not be someone’s ideal circumstance to go from a 4 bedroom rental home to a 2 bedroom apartment, I have to admit it feels so great to have life become that simple.  If we’ll need it, it comes into the apartment, if we will use it once we have the space again (such as Jeff’s woodworking tools collection) then it goes to storage, and if I won’t need it now, can’t say for sure I’ll use it when we move next, or think that I’ll probably upgrade at the point in time we next move…then just get rid of it.  We’ve both held on to a lot of items because of “what if’s” with our moving around since we first got together and combined houses.  It feels good to finally just let that go and when I look around my somewhat disorganized obstacle course of an apartment know that it’s not just “stuff” to fill empty space, though Jeff may say otherwise about my shoe collection J  I’m not saying it’s not good to make your house a home, to decorate, and to have hobbies or find something to collect while on your travels…however at what point does it go from home décor and fun hobbies to borderline hording?  As a kid I remember my parents encouraging me to go through my clothing and shoes and if I hadn’t worn it in the last 6 months to a year (unless it was seasonal), or if it didn’t fit, to give it away.  That always made sense to me with my clothing, but that may almost be something worth implementing in the rest of our everyday life to the items that actually serve a functioning purpose.