It's amazing the amount of stuff -- and I mean stuff -- one man and one woman can accumulate both apart and together. It's amazing that BC (before children) most of that said stuff seems so freaking important that it builds and builds upon itself and the next thing you know your attic is, well, adult build-a-blocks just waiting to collapse.
The interesting part of marrying later in life is having so many single years to build up junk equity. Da! and I have plenty, plenty, plenty of junk equity. So much so that we made several attempts before J and L arrived to clear out the junk, to make room for the good stuff. Twins, nonetheless, would bring on lots of good stuff. We rummaged, we scattered, we dumped, we stored, we groaned, and we even bickered a little about what should stay and what should go.
"You're not throwing anything out," I'd tell him.
"Yes, I am," he would say, pointing to a bag of garbage.
How did we get here?
I know exactly how. Our parents and my grandmother -- yes, Barbie, you -- give us all the stuff they don't want. And, then, on top of it, as writers, we have books beyond books, paper mountains crowned by pitiful browning stacks upon stacks of old newspapers with our names published some where inside. Somewhere.
This means, dear friends, we had to have a yard sale. Have you had a yard sale lately? A real yard sale? Goodness it is a lot of work. After 4.5 hours of selling --this after 5 hours of hauling, setting up and breaking down -- I was utterly exhausted. Every muscle ached, every bone cracked, and I was just weary.
So weary that I fell asleep before 8 p.m., slept on the couch for two hours, only to crawl up the stairs and into bed for another 8 hours.
The good news is that I feel rested today. I've already spotted at least five things we should have put in the sale and emptied three boxes of papers that just gotta go.
And, we hardly put a dent in it.
The great thing is that I have a clear mind for what can stay and what must go now that I have children. Let's call it Baby Goggles. If said item isn't for them or by them, doesn't hold any value for us as a family or for us as individuals, it must go.
Probably 90 percent of it, when I look at it now, means nothing. What means everything is sleeping in two cribs in the room below me right now.
Sunday, June 3, 2007
When exhaustion strikes
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2 comments:
I've spent the last six years since our son was born trying to pare down all the junk in our home, and it still feels like we are full to bursting!
I've given up on yard sales as way, way too much work. Whenever I get a few full boxes of goods to go, I go to The Salvation Army's website and book a pickup! The tax write-off isn't what I would make at a yard sale, but it is much less hassle! And I give them a box or two full of stuff about once a month... How is it even possible that we still have anything left? Yet we do!
I was a packrat (totally and completely) until pregnant with baby #2. Then, while waiting to go into labor, I got rid of everything. The people at Goodwill knew us by name. And it felt so good. Now my husband and I have swapped roles. I'm always telling him to get rid of stuff and he's trying to hold onto it.
Getting rid of stuff is addictive!
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