Thursday, January 5, 2017

So far...

I am typing this in the most awkward way possible with a baby sleeping on me, but I really feel like talking about something that happened today so I'm going to make it work...and hopefully keep it short because this is not easy or comfortable. I mean the part about trying to type while balancing a computer on Olive isn't easy or comfortable, I'm really happy about what I want to share.

Over the past few weeks I have donated hundreds of things. My mom is the most helpful person ever and is making it really easy for me by letting me fill up her car when she visits and dropping things off at donation centres for me. I seriously can't thank her enough.

I want to back up a little and talk about the way I'm dealing with getting rid of things. I don't think I've mentioned this yet but it would be way to hard for me to go back and check because of the previously mentioned  sleeping baby making this difficult. In the past when I have gone through things to get rid of I always felt like I needed to start with the problem areas first. The basement has lots of big things we aren't using and getting rid of them is a bit of a pain so it's hard to get motivated to do it. Also, even though I have donated tons of clothes, I still have way more than I need. Same with shoes. Add kids toys into the mix and it all just feels too overwhelming to even begin.

When I was thinking about how to start minimizing our things this time I looked around and decided to start with the things around us everyday, the things that are in our kitchen drawers that we have to move around to get to the things we actually use. I had recently organized our kitchen drawers so this was a really easy place for me to start. I could see clearly which items we hadn't used since I had organized, those things that I was hanging onto just in case. Now, it was very easy for me to pack them up. I moved onto cupboards with too many plates, cups and mugs and have been continuing through the kitchen tackling whatever little area I felt I had time for or could mentally handle in that moment.

That's been huge for me. Just dealing with what I feel like I can handle. With Olive being so little still, I can't take a day where I can focus all of my attention on clearing things out, so sneaking a few minutes here and there to add things to a donation box has been the solution. Before, I felt like I shouldn't even bother starting if I can't make a big dent in the amount of things we have but I'm so happy that I've moved past that mental block and have been slowly chipping away, seeing progress, feeling lighter and so much happier. I honestly can't believe what a difference it has made so far. My attachment to things is fading and getting rid of these non sentimental kitchen items is actually making me feel comfortable with the thought of getting rid of things I never would have considered parting with before even though they are adding no value to my life.

An example of this is something that happened today that I want to remember. I have an original Nintendo system that belonged to my Grama. Pretty cool, but also sentimental because I spent a lot of time as a kid watching my Grama play Nintendo. I know, that sounds weird but I loved watching my Grama play video games. Tonight Ivan and I were talking about things that we don't need and he asked me about my Nintendo and all the games. We've played it a few times over the years but haven't pulled it out in a really long time. My immediate response was, "I'm not ready to deal with that yet". As soon as those words came out of my mouth I realized that it wasn't true and that I was totally ready to pass that Nintendo on to someone who would be really excited about it and use it. I am still so suprised by my reaction and it shows me how far I've come in such a short time. Nintendo reminds me of my Grama but I don't need to own a Nintendo to remember her.

I really wanted to document that shift in my feelings about things because it suprised me and made me feel really good. I'm looking forward to more moments like that.