Right now we are kind of refugees. We sold our house in September, in preparation for a move to Virginia that should come anytime now. My husband has/will be getting a job there, but it's a federal type thing, so we're in the perpetual 'wait until they tell me to go' wait many government employees probably understand. Luckily, we have family with a home and hearts big enough to take us in while we wait for the phone call or email or letter or whatever it is we're waiting for, telling us to go.
Not having a place of your own is hard, especially when you're used to being on your own. Even more so when you have kids and a family routine with which you are familiar and comfortable. My house wasn't perfect. I frequently cursed it. But it was mine. I could look around and see the light fixtures my husband installed, the porch my dad built, the wall the cats scratched and I patched. There was the little veggie garden spot where I tried each year to be a disciplined little gardener, but mostly just came up with a patch of weeds and cherry tomatoes. I wouldn't have minded staying there longer. But that's not where the job will be, so we had to sell it.
I was sad to sell the house at the price the market will take now. We had paid more for it when we bought, and put in a ton of work. In the end, after much crying over it, I resigned myself to accepting it as good karma. The lady who bought the house was a very nice single mother with a daughter excited to have her own room. I probably wouldn't have done anything too wonderful with the money anyway, it's probably better to have the karma. We fixed up and took care of that house because it was the right thing to do.
In the first week after the house sold I had a dream. In the dream a box mysteriously arrived at the door, addressed to me. Apparently I had ordered plant bulbs for the garden some months before and forgotten. When I opened the box and saw what it was, I cried and cried (still in the dream) because I had no yard in which to plant the bulbs.
I'm trying to let go of my attachment to that house. It was just a house. It was not the warmth of family and friends that filled it, or the security of the kids asleep in the neighboring bedrooms. It was a building. A building I yelled at, and that made me sad and angry so many times. Going back to the past is not the answer.
I dream about the next house. We plan to roam around for awhile, so I won't have one of my own for a bit. In a way I am excited about that. In another way, I want my tiny house with a cottage bakery out back and a large outdoor space where friends can gather and a goat farm and chickens. And ideally I want it now.
But wanting and attaching oneself to such ideas of the future can be so painful. It's impossible to make them happen instantaneously. And even if it wasn't, and I could have a magic genie pop me into my tiny baking farmette dream house now, my mind would wander to the next wish and get upset again at the impossibility of the desire. The grass is always greener, as they say.
That's exactly where I found myself yesterday, dreaming of the tiny house, and it made me sad. So to work on my attachment sadness of the moment I did the logical thing, and started getting rid of stuff. It's not to hard to do when living with a semi-hoarder family and children, who are always hoarders in their own special ways. This move, which I've been preparing for at an "any moment now!" level for almost a year, has helped me to pare down our belongings. I'll probably get rid of more when it's really time to go. Yesterday, I cleared out more clothing, books, and toys for donation, recycled many old papers my brother had hanging around (syllabi from 2005 are no longer needed), and tossed out things that could not be fit into either category (ie: the POGS and pogtainer in the back of the closet, probably placed there in 1995).
Hanging on to old stuff can be bad for you. It's costly in a monetary way, just to store so much crap. It's costly in a psychological way, too. Keeping those baby clothes from your 13 year old isn't going to make him a baby again. And making him a baby again wouldn't make you happy anyway. Babies poop and cry a lot, and you worked really hard to get him past all those stages to the 13 year old point. It's not the clothing you want, it's the memory of the snuggly, warm baby you want, and that is accessible to you anytime. So is the lovely awkwardness of a 13 year old in the present moment.
Plus, the more stuff you have, the harder it is to maintain. If you move, you have to move it. If it's there, you have to clean it. Closets full of things result in things full of dust. Excess dust can even be dangerous to your health. Think about it.
Letting go of belongings can be so freeing. And it's such a concrete, easy to see thing. It can be hard to understand and visualize how helpful it is to let go of ideas and feelings- like that longing for a house, for those pleasant moments of the past, or for those perfect ideas of the future. It's easy to see clear, neat shelves, or the happiness of a friend's child who acquired your kid's too-small clothing.
I tip my hat to those who can do the full minimalist thing. I'm not that good, and it's not really something I fully aspire toward at this point anyway. But I do think, at least in idea, I'm on the right track.
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