A Revolution of Less

I must confess that every once in a while, I wish my house would burn down and I could start completely over.  It's a pretty frequent fantasy that I have: everyone I love makes it out safely, all of our important documents like birth certificates and passports are grabbed in the nick of time, and the pictures we treasure are, of course, safe and sound in a fireproof storage container.  

I don't lay in bed at night dreaming of a shirtless man that looks remarkably like George Clooney falling in love with me and telling me how interesting and beautiful I am... I fantasize about house fires.  I think that's probably a not-so-subconscious hint that I have too much stuff.  

We live in a 3,200 square foot house and have every square foot of it tastefully decorated.  Our garage is full of stuff to help maintain the inside and outside of our tastefully decorated house.  The garage does have a car in it- a project car that was supposed to be a fun hobby for The Pastor and our kids to bond over- but we've never had the time or the money to work on it.  There is stuff sitting on every horizontal surface of the project car: parts and tools and a picture that hung in my office and a box of microwave popcorn from Sam's Club and our youngest's yard shoes and the basketball that our oldest used to shoot hoops at the park with six years ago.  

Behind our house is more stuff.  Way back past the lawn close to the alley there's actually a commercial pizza oven that my father in law got for a steal.  There's a trailer for hauling stuff, an old lawnmower with no engine, and more parked cars that don't run that belong to other family members.  Lucky us, we've been the people throughout our extended family who have stayed put the longest and have the "extra" space to store things for everyone.  Yay.  I try not to look out there because all of that junk makes me anxious and embarrassed at the same time.  At least you can't see it from the street.   

I'm not a pack rat and I don't really consider myself unnecessarily sentimental, but man, along with 25 years of marriage and two kids comes a crap load of stuff.  Some of it is stuff that literally hasn't moved or changed in the 17 years that we have called this place home because it fit that little corner shelf so perfectly; I just dust it once a month and try to go back to ignoring it.  

But it's all starting to bother me; I have been discontent for some time now.  It's funny, though.  I'm not discontent for more... I'm discontent for less, if that makes any sense.  Luckily, or by divine providence I stumbled across the blog called theminimalists.com and it spoke to me.  I bought their book (pictured above) and read it voraciously, underlining and highlighting and making furious notes along the page edges; it spoke to me too.  

Minimalism isn't a religious movement, but I feel that for me, it would only enhance my relationship with Christ and with those around me by freeing up the time I spend maintaining all of our stuff and the room it takes up in my subconscious- and giving me the time and space to focus on the things in my life that are not stuff-related.  Things of the heart and soul and mind.  Otherworldly stuff, which is a lot more meaningful in the long run.  

I'm going to start making some small changes that I hope will snowball into some larger changes.  That hopefully those I love will notice and want to know about, take part in.  Of course I know having my house burn down would be traumatic and horrible, but for me, it would also equate to taking the easy way out... getting rid of things without having to do any of the hard work that had to do with getting rid of things.  

I am looking forward to seeing the payoff spiritually, mentally, financially, and with my health and I'm ready to do the work.