Sorting

One of the great(?) things about beginning to contemplate moving is the process of getting ready to pack.  This in turn leads itself to the act of The Great Review of Stuff.

Charles Swindoll once commented that stuff has a way of growing:  when he and his wife first got married, they could move in a car.  Then they moved again, and that took a small trailer.  Then again, and it took a large truck - finally, they reached the point of needing a whole fleet of trucks when they moved.

I'd laugh, but it is too true.  We have a huge collection of stuff - not only in our house, but in our garage and in a shed as well.

Where did this stuff come from? It is hard to remember that once upon a time we, too, had not a lot of stuff.  I can remember the first time after I moved off campus from graduate school that I, too, had only enough stuff that I could fit in the back of my car.  It  consisted of books, clothes,  an Apple computer and a futon to sleep on.  The furniture I had was a cardboard chest of drawers that I assembled for socks and underwear.

And now we seem to have so much that I too often seem to stumble over it when I move around.

One of the theoretical advantages of moving is that you have the opportunity to review everything you are living with and make changes.  There is no sense in packing stuff, moving stuff, and unpacking stuff only to find you do not really need it anyway.  But to do that it requires a special ability:  the ability to let go.

I wonder if our enchantment with stuff is not partially due to a combined sense of selfishness and security.  We want to keep it because it is ours; we want to keep it because it offers us security.  Perhaps once we got rid of something and then suddenly needed it; forever after we convince ourselves that we must keep everything in case we have need of it.

Another potential factor:  we get stuff at certain times in our lives when we are interested in certain things.  We may move on from the interests; the stuff either serves as a reminder of that which we used to do and enjoy. To let it go sometimes seems like letting parts of our souls go as well.

But the move is coming regardless:  smaller house, no shed,  a garage I would like to park in someday.  The change needs to be made, the stuff sorted and moved on.  The question too often is if we have the ability and emotional fortitude to  do it.