I Have A Plan!!

I have lived in this same house for seventeen years.  It's been a happy home.  I've watched my children grow up here.  I've watched my marriage mature here. It's been quite an adventure and even though through some of the times I might not have seen how it could possibly be, it has been a blessing.   We have grown and matured and increased in body, in spirit and in accumulated stuff.


It's amazing how much stuff you can accumulate over time.  I was looking  at some pictures from when my kids were small and I thought, "Wow, the house looks so clean!"  I remember those times, and I remember it being hard to make it look nice because the carpet was old  and threadbare, the paint was drab and worn, the place was, well... lived in.  I remember trying so hard to make the place look nice and feeling hopeless about it, only to look back at pictures and wonder why it looked so good.  


It wasn't clean... it was clear, as in uncluttered.


For seventeen years we have amassed treasures scraped together during hard times, or received as gifts, or made by our children's own hands.  Things we worked hard for and relied on for years, things we touched with our hands and incorporated into our memories found their way into remote corners because the intrinsic value and the emotional attachment made them near impossible to simply get rid of them, just like that with no fanfare; tossed aside with no ceremony.  Now, with all the love in my heart, with tears of pain and joy I'm going through my treasures... and tossing them overboard!  


I made an actual plan!  Me!  I did! Moreover, I am sticking to it!  My avid readers might remember when I said that I was planning to do something, and that if I figured out what it was I would post it, well, here it is!!  I have decided that I am going to get rid of twenty items per day, (at least twenty to begin with because of how much their is) big or small, five days a week.  My kids have to get rid of one thing a day.  It's actually starting to make a dent.  It is bittersweet.  Some of the things call to me as I toss them toward a box that goes to the thrift store, or into the trash box, and they almost stick to my hands, but it's getting easier.  Each time I shed something I realize that the only way to keep the vessel afloat is to lighten her load.  


I remember when I was asking for help.  My friends and family had some great ideas, really, but I just could NOT implement them!  I was frozen, sort of.  I know, I know... they are just things, they are just this and they are just that, but they were so woven into the fabric of my memories and my life that I literally could not do anything.  However, somewhere along the line a realization hit me.  I finally understood how to make it happen.  


Sometimes soon I will blog about the process I went through to get to that point in hopes that it might help, or at least encourage someone else, because it was miserably stressful and confusing.  I'm sure I am not alone in feeling that way.  For now,  though, I just want to say it feels really good. As difficult as some of it is I can feel the stress creeping away an item at a time.  


Freedom.  Ahhhh... breathe in; breathe out.  Freedom requires that I do this.   


Just a little thank you to my friend, Loretta.  She said something I never thanked her properly for.  She suggested that I take pictures of some of the 'special items' before I get rid of them and make a memory album.  I sort of filed that suggestion away thinking I'd never really need it, (after all I was never going to part with anything) and passed it off.  She surely thought I ignored it, but I didn't.  It was there,  filed until I could use it.  Thank you, my friend.  That was brilliant!


So, yay for me!  I will update my progress periodically.  


Ecc 3:6  A time to get, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away;
Ecc 3:1  To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven: