STUFF!

SimpleMom is hosting Spring Cleaning Week. She did this last year and I wanted to join in, but it just wasn't realistic at that point. But this year, I am ready! I'd already started some decluttering over the past couple of weeks, but not really in any kind of organized, systematic way. I downloaded SimpleMom's e-book, though she also linked daily posts from last year, so you can certainly follow along without getting the e-book. But let's be honest, I need all the help I can get in this department...

I've been thinking a lot about STUFF lately. I have a lot of stuff. Our house is full of stuff. I'm a pretty sentimental person, so I tend to save stuff I don't need for sentimental reasons. I also have a problem with things I am saving "just in case" I need them some day, and things I am saving out of guilt (gifts, things that cost a lot of money, etc). I need to watch out for these things while I'm decluttering.

The past few months have been full of confusing things and uncertainty for our family. Through everything one of my *many* issues that has cropped up for me has been the issue of stuff. When I am stressed, and feeling a lack of certainty and/or security in my life, I start grasping desperately for STUFF. I start looking to stuff to tell me who I am, who I can be, what I can do. To help me feel secure, somehow.

I grasp the stuff I already have - I horde all of those random bits and pieces I've been collecting for years to decorate the girls' room, because someday I will use them to actually decorate their room, because that tells me I am a hip, cool mama, who throws thrifted and vintage stuff together to make something really awesome (yes, I know this thinking is NOT grounded in reality!). I horde all of that random material I've been saving to make nappies with, because that tells me I am a mama who is crafty and cares about the environment and turns old discarded stuff into super cute and useful items that people are impressed with, and even just that I am a mama who uses cloth nappies instead of disposables like "everyone else" does. (Don't ask me what type of nappy is on my peanut's precious little bum right now...) I save those funky thrifted clothes that do not fit me, because they they tell me that inside this slightly overweight body with a boring hairstyle is a skinny attractive person with a great funky style. (Really, she has to be in there somewhere! Isn't she? Hello in there?!)

I also grasp at the stuff I don't yet have - but that I need to make me happy. I am being totally honest here, though I feel a bit dumb admitting some of this stuff...I constantly search craigslist for the *perfect* stroller. Because I just don't want to have the same stroller as "everyone else" (see a theme here?), because I lived in UK and had a pram, people! I can't settle for a cheap crappy stroller! I have better taste than that! Not to mention that if I had the perfect stroller combination, then I could really live the life independent of my car that I want to live, and I would totally walk to Richmond Beach and have picnic dinners with my children all the time, and not even think twice about the long uphill trek home. Etc etc. And you know, if I just had the money to buy all organic produce and local grassfed beef and eggs from my own chickens, then I would be the kind of person I want to be, and super healthy and tasty dinners would practically make themselves in my kitchen every night! And we would all be strong and healthy and beautiful and my children would be the smartest in the land!! And you get the picture. I'm embarrassed to admit I really get caught up in thinking this way. (Please tell me I'm not the only one!)

So yeah. Stuff. After all of this reflecting on myself that I've been doing, I'm feeling a strong urge to clear out all of the clutter and make room to just breathe. All of this clutter in my heart, this grasping wildly for stuff, is suffocating. Not to mention exhausting! So I spend all of my energy on that junk instead of on the things I actually want to do.

To bring this back to what I originally was posting about...all of this thinking about stuff and my relationship with it is part of why I'm excited to do this spring cleaning thing. Like I said, I had already started trying to do some clearing and cleaning, but I really need some help and direction because this does NOT come naturally to me! :) I'm really hoping that as I pry my fingers off of all this crap in my house and life, I will stop letting it tell me what I can and can't do, who I can and can't be. I don't want to live a reactionary life, I want to live a PROACTIVE life. Why let myself be controlled by stuff? That's pretty pathetic.

I'm hoping to post through this process. I expect it will take me a lot longer than 10 days, but I'd rather take longer and truly get everything cleaned out. Stay tuned!