Okay, this is entirely my OWN fault. I am a natural hoarder and collector - a real bower bird. Ooh, shiny object, shiny object, must have for my nest!!!
As some of you know, we have just moved home to HI with our usual 20ft container packed to the gunnels. I am currenlty surrounded by 32 boxes here in my office alone and I'm not EVEN exaggerating. Mores the pity! If only!
I wish I could start culling out some of my stuff! I LOVE the idea of being a minimalist - however... I have a passionate love of art and books. I DO go through my books every so often but really, in truth, that is just to make room for all the new ones I've bought. New bookcases mysteriously sprout in our house. And as for art... well, every so often, I get a piece that just doesn't work for me any more but... again, it's usually been replaced by 2 others - so the culling is a bit of a non event.
And then.... Aaron and I both love to cook - so the kitchen has every jolly thing known to chefs since time immemorial. God forbid that there will not be the right platter or glassware for settings or plating - arghhhhhhh. :-) At least, I am not a clothes junkie as well. Although - shoes... I realised talking to a friend the other day that really what I need is a big house that is the 'warehouse' house and then a couple of 1 bedroom places that I can run away to when I just want the simplicity feature.
And herein lies the current confusion for me. What DO I really want? Do I truly want things thinned out. Do I really want a one bedroom cabin? Could I really live without all this 'stuff.' What is the answer?
On the one hand, the thought of say being able to pack our stuff into a 10ft container say - laid out - not jigsaw packed and have room to move - feels so liberating. The thought of having a one bedroom place and that's it - is so very refreshing. While part of me hated living in a studio garage Ohana - part of me - loved it. Things were so simple! What I could see from our bed was IT! I feel burdened here in this big house with it's million of boxes and 'stuff.' Just looking around my office - makes me sigh hearterly.
And I am overwhelmed by it all. And not really enjoying it. At all.
So, what is the answer. The truth is: I LOVE books and art and kitchen stuff. There's also a part of me hankering for simplicity. One of my best friends Donnie has one coffee cup to his name. I understand this principle. There's him and nobody else - why would he say have 22, which is about what we have. Again, what's frightening is that I'm not even exaggerating. Argh. Now, perhaps I'd be amply prepared if say we had to hold a funeral tea here and there would be ample coffee cups to go around without hiring some. Although in truth, I would hope that any funeral I catered for - was more into gallons of alcohol. But still - I'm prepared obviously for this unlikely eventuality... Hmmm.
And I could cope better at having a toss out if I simply had lots of shoddy rubbishy coffee cups with chips out of them and dings and they were boring and passed down from Great Auntie Flo who bought them cheap at Woolies 50 years ago. Not antique - just old. But they're FUN coffee cups! How do you get rid of fun coffee cups. How do you cull fun things?
This is the question...
I realised today that the whole unpacking thing was completely overwhelming me. And I'm not enjoying it at all. Not helped by knowing that we have only rented this house for 6 months and thinking that in 4 months time, it will be pack up time - again. So, rather than go stark raving mad and starting to toss unopened boxes on the street with a free sign on them. I have decided that I will only unpack the books in my office that I REALLY like. The ones I read every year, the ones I look up stuff in, the ones I simply enjoy seeing their spines etc. (I'm hoping there are a big quantity left that remain in the boxes.) These will then be taken to the garage and marked with a 2. 2 means they are a secondary box and are not a total necessity to be unpacked.
This still does not really solve the problem.
I know some people who rotate their art but I am essnetially too lazy to do that and I pretty much love everything I hang anyway.
So, it seems that my only real way to deal with this is:
a) Buy a big house that I NEVER want to sell and thus can act as a warehouse/musuem/archives type place.
b) buy one bedroom places in gorgeous spots that will grab my short attention span for at least a couple of months at a time.
c) eventually hire someone else to look after all the bills many places generate.
d) try to not outbuy the pace of the one bedrooms
e) hire a personal packer who is even more anal than me about packing things up and keep them on retainer.
f) Hire a huge Winnebago and Aaron, Leo and I will simply run away in it.
There's only so much you can put in a Winnebago after all.
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