De-Cluttering

We were stunned at the amount of stuff we had to unload.  We had just pulled up to our new home with a 24’ U-Haul and a 12’ box trailer full of all of our belongings and we knew the daunting task that lie ahead of us—unloading all of our stuff and fitting it all in our new home. Then, we still had to arrange another trip to get stuff that we had to leave in storage at our last location because we ran out of room in the truck/trailer!

Granted, we are a large family.  However, the reality is that we had accumulated too much stuff over time.  This became undeniable as we unloaded furniture…then appliances…then clothes….then toys, tools, books, books, more books, cookware, dishes, holiday decorations…the list goes on.  Finally, our house was full.  The truck and trailer were finally unloaded, but our house was almost too full.  We had more things than would reasonably fit into all the rooms. The basement and the garage were also full of boxes that were mostly filled with items we didn’t account for or things we had collected but hadn’t seen or touched in years.

Then, we decided to start clearing space in the garage and basement so that we could use them for something other than storage.  We decided to part with some of the things that we had been dragging around with us for a long time.  We knew we needed to downsize and part with some of our possessions in order to find some organization and reduce the amount of mess that we found ourselves dealing with too often.

It’s sort of interesting, experiencing and observing the emotions that we go through when we part with something that we used to place a greater amount of value on—the struggle to commit to let things go (whether to be donated or discarded).  However, what was also somewhat unexpected that as we were “lightening our load”, we actually felt lighter—a sort of relief that I’ve not yet found a fitting description for.

Our effort to downsize is still ongoing and we aren’t close to finished.  I will say that while I don’t see us going full-on “minimalist”, I can certainly appreciate not being so weighed down by things I don’t need anymore. I can also appreciate the extra room to let the kids grow into the newly freed space. We are all learning to make do with a little less, and we’re also learning to appreciate what we still have—the things that truly matter to us—a little more.