guilt (By Laura)

It has been a roller coaster day today.  Neither of us expected this process to be quite so emotional, to be honest.  It seemed like it would be fun, and exciting, and inspiring.  And in many respects it is.  There is something really, really fun and satisfying about letting loose and being really free with our "stuff".  What a great feeling to just say, "GET RID OF IT!" "RECYCLE!" "GIVE IT AWAY!".  There is something really freeing about loosening our grip on our stuff and embracing each other, a different way of being, the promise of less time and money spent on the ownership and upkeep of things and more time and focus spent on each other, and the people around us.

I've been battling a cold, as has our middle daughter, who we'll call Pito.  She and I have been sluggish and sniffly, and at the worst of times, a little emotional and weepy.  The other night her big sister, who we'll refer to as Plava, slept over at Grandma and Grandpa's house, and let me tell ya, there was a mighty sad little girl in the house that night.  Tears and hugs and sad, loving things said about her big sister.  It's touching to see how close they already are at this young age.  It's not always like this, because of course they are siblings after all, but it's nice to witness nonetheless.

The thing with this cold is that it has just knocked me over.  I feel exhausted.  Wiped.  So tired that I feel foggy-brained.  If I didn't know any better (*BUT I DO), I'd think I was pregnant (*BUT I'M NOT).  (Parentheses and CAPS in honour of suspicious family members who might assume otherwise....!!)  And so on a morning in which we planned to do some more serious purging, I found myself exhausted and longing to lie down and sleep.  It didn't help that my dear two-year-old, who we'll call Pony, was up and pulling me out of bed at 6:30.  That is no way to get better from a cold, dear little one.

So we purged, amidst feelings of exhaustion and a fogginess of brain that had me wondering what on earth we were doing thinking of moving.  I couldn't see my thoughts clearly, and certainly couldn't muster up any excitement about this whole thing.  But, knowing how horrible I was feeling and how it was affecting me, I chose to continue on and just wait until the clouds cleared and I was better, thinking straight again.  And so I purged.

I worked through one of the most daunting rooms yet - the homeschool room, which happens to double as Pony's bedroom.  :)  This meant facing all of last year's school work that I hadn't sorted through during the summer (which I had intended to do before the summer) and also making some tough decisions on what to keep and what to turf.  It's tricky people!  Do I keep the math curriculum that didn't really work for Plava but may at some point work for Pito or perhaps Pony?  They're expensive to buy!

I didn't do too badly in the end.  I realized that I didn't have all that much to work through - there was just a lot of garbage.  And this is when I started feeling gross.

Not gross in the physical sense, but gross in the "I can't believe how much garbage we need to send to the landfills" gross.  The kind of gross that makes you ask yourself what on earth you were thinking casually accumulating all this junk.  This process has already had a huge affect on us in terms of how we buy things.  Watching large plastic items sent off to the recycling depot, bags and bags of garbage picked up on their way to the landfill, and countless other things that we had hoped to donate but haven't had luck at any thrift stores, leaving us wondering if they just need to be thrown away - it's embarrassing.  What a wasteful, disposable attitude we have had for so many years!

It's not even "junky" things that I'm referring to, either.  It's things like cheap school backpacks for the girls that were bought at Walmart.  They fall apart before the year is over and need to be thrown out.  Board games that we bought, thinking maybe we'd "get into boardgames", only to have them sit in the closet for years, untouched.  Random art supplies that got tucked into a corner, never used.  The clarinet that was given to me by a friend when I was younger that I always thought I'd try and learn how to play.  And I'm certainly guilty of being lured by "free stuff" that people are getting rid of, so there's always a certain amount of that kind of thing hanging around.  "We'll definitely be able to use this!" I'd say.  Ryan is really good at realizing the fault in that and calling me on it.  In fact, in our little city by the sea, there are always a good many items out on the street with "free" signs posted.  Ryan will see me looking and just say, "NO."  It's a source of humour some days, and just plain annoying on others.  :)  I mean, it's FREE!!!

Aaaand therein lies the problem.

So it's humbling.  More humbling than we expected.  We aren't ones to keep a lot of "stuff", but we're finding that everyone has a certain amount of unused junk lying in corners and drawers and garages and closets.  I mean, you have a house, and what do you do?  You fill it!  To the brim!

So, it feels good, and bad, to unearth the mysteries and open the drawers, and I'm glad we're doing it.