{This week’s links are all about moving and de-cluttering and are littered throughout the text below}
So as you all know, I moved house last weekend. And yes, it was every bit as traumatic as I thought it would be, thanks for asking.
When we last moved, Mia was one month old and we’d just completely de-cluttered our house in order to prepare it for sale. I thought that move would be a breeze because isn’t the hardest bit of moving deciding what to take and what to get rid of?
Wrong.
What that particular move taught me is:
- no matter how much of a dedicated de-clutterer you are,
- no matter than you don’t believe things have feelings (and would therefore be hurt that you’re getting rid of them),
- no matter that you know every single thing in your house is a keeper;
you will still find you have a lot of STUFF.
And it’s not the big stuff (furniture etc) that gets you. It’s the small stuff: books, knick knacks, 7000 beautiful notebooks, pencil holders, books, books and more books …
Perhaps it was the post-natal depression that was about to kick in shortly after that move, but at the time, burning down the house seemed like a good solution to the ‘stuff’ problem.
Fast forward to this move and again, lots of stuff. And again, gee it was painful extracting that stuff from the various places it was stored, packing it up and transporting it to the new place.
This time however, once moved, I saw the stuff in a different light.
When we first moved in to this house, it was all very sterile and clean. We got the main stuff set up (beds etc) and then crashed for the night. The next day I was at a conference all day. Little did I know that Ant was busy unpacking.
ALL our stuff.
It wasn’t really part of the plan – we’re going to be moving again in November (hopefully for the last. time. ever). But unpack he did and when I returned later that evening, I discovered, to my surprise, that the house had been turned into a home.
Which has kind of turned everything I’ve ever thought about ‘stuff’ on its head a bit. Specifically:
- I have much more of it than I think; and
- That’s ok because all that stuff tells me I’m ‘home’ (I’m someone who likes to put roots down so I need to know I have a home).
Furthermore, in addition to liking stuff, I also apparently like labels.
And I’ve always labelled myself as a minimalist (where minimalism = consciously choosing to keep certain things … as opposed to the need to own nothing). Then I read this post from Dannielle and a lot of the stuff resonated with me.
So perhaps I’m actually more of an experientialist?
Stuff to ponder this weekend. Have a good one team!