Wednesday, August 19, 2009

my stuff

I've been thinking a lot about what life will be like when we live in our own place here in NJ. Will I miss my sister's house?
Ben and I went to the garage yesterday and reorganized it. We were able to move everything so that there was actually empty space in there for things that had been left outside (i.e. the lawn mower, bikes, etc.). We had to look through boxes, too, so we could get things out that we needed. We mostly got clothes and toys. I also found a big box full of brand new cleaners and also a plastic tub full of toilet paper. :-) Of course you know I paid barely anything for all of those things. When we finally got the garage the way we wanted it and brought everything inside that was coming in I looked through the things that we've been using and packed some of it up to take out to the garage. So I swapped some boxes, basically. But now we have a lot more things that we wanted to use.

As I stood outside on the lawn looking into the garage I realized how "poor" I felt. I dunno, its weird. It's just so bizarre knowing that most of what you own (including irreplaceable things) is right there, in front of you. That's all we own. Everything. We have some things inside, but the vast majority is right there. It just seemed like it should be more, I guess.
I thought about how we are living right now. We only have bare essentials. Most of those essentials belong to my sister, too; they're not even ours. Why? Because they're all still packed. lol
This experience has really taught me to live with less. Its ok to live with less. Its ok not to have a lot of things. Actually, its kinda nice. Its made me evaluate the things that truly make me happy. And stuff really isn't one of those things.

But I do have to say that it will be AWESOME to be able to use all my stuff again.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

I have had a related experience in the past couple of days, but certainly not on the same scale as yours. For reasons that would take far to long to explain in a blog post comment, we're looking into getting renter's insurance for our place here in Maryland. As I have thought about the amount of money it would take to cover our entire personal belongings, it made me realize just how few things we own too.

It's been a slow process for me over my life, but I too have come to gain appreciation for the things I DO have. And when I start to feel "poor" as you described in your post, I am usually pretty quick to remind myself that things could be A LOT worse! :-)

As you noted, there are certainly precious treasures a lot more important in this life than material things. You know, the kind of treasures that you would never box up and leave in the garage -- family, faith/testimony, friendships, etc.

Thanks for this post. It has actually uplifted me more than you might realize.