About a month ago, much to my mother’s delight, I finally got around to cleaning up and putting away all of the stuff that I had brought home from college. Nothing was where it was supposed to be. Books were in boxes, towels were in drawers, and my clothes were all over the place - in baskets, in piles on the floor, and even one or two shirts in my dresser drawers. I decided to make piles of everything and figure out where to go from there, so I started to throw my clothes into one corner of my room. By the time that I tossed on that last wrinkled tee-shirt, the pile was as big as my twin bed and half as useful. It was the first time that I had ever had such a clear visual of the sheer amount of clothes that I had. There was no way I needed that many clothes, so I decided right then and there to get rid of at least half of what I saw in front of me. I ended up donating six garbage bags of clothes, bags, and shoes to Goodwill. Dropping those bags off was a great feeling, but coming home and seeing how much less I had was even better. For years, I’ve been a believer in less stuff. Who needs it all? People need to downsize, not supersize. Coming face to face with my stuff in such a concrete way reinforced that to me, and made it more real than ever. Those six bags were just a start. Even more is going to be on it’s way out, and it’s not just going to be clothes next time.
Your mother is delighted! Now if I could downsize certain areas too...
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