Things That Are True - Burning Down the House

I am having that day; the day when I look around and feel like I'd be better off if I just burned it all down and started over. Picking through the embers and the ashes I'd find that which really matters to me, and just leave everything else behind.

Of course, the landlord might not be keen on me committing arson in or near his property.

It's a concrete building, but still.

A decade ago I was all about acquiring things. New furniture, designer clothes, a cool car; I was a good little consumer and diligently practiced acquisitiveness on a regular basis. Now, I would just as happily throw everything I own out the window (Except maybe my laptop. And one or two books. And the Armani suit I swear I'll fit back into some day.) as ever deal with any of it again. I feel like I'm constantly getting rid of things, and yet there's always too much stuff in my physical (and mental) space. It's like being at a rock concert that's just a little bit too loud (and that's how you know I'm getting old, as if a rock concert could be too loud, for the love of Mike) and not being able to leave.

It exhausts me, this stuff.

I am ever vigilant. The three of us live in 950 square feet. There is no room for excess, and yet it always feels like I'm not quite keeping up with the incoming tide. Toys are passed on the moment they're outgrown, books are read and given away, our clothes closets are purged regularly. I have foisted shoes on my friends, and traded a cast iron frying pan for waterproof cycling gloves. I have quietly divested myself of wedding gifts we don't use, appliances that take up more space than they're worth (how are you liking that juicer, Skot?) and been inching towards minimalism on several levels, but I still always feel like a wave of clutter is about to knock me on my ass.

So here's what I've been doing to strip away the things I don't want to deal with anymore:

• I sold my car. I didn't use it often enough to justify the expense, and when HSWNBN bought a new-to-us car in June, we decided to take the plunge and become a one-car family. I now bicycle everywhere with The Imp towed in a trailer behind me.

• I remove at least three items from my home daily that are never to return - even if it's just taking out the recycling, something leaves my house every day. I've put up photos on flickr and offered things free to the first taker on twitter. I've left stuff in the back alley behind our building - a guaranteed way to make it disappear in less than ten minutes. No way to change my mind and decide to keep things "just in case". 

• Anything new that comes in the house is balanced by something leaving the house. New toy in, old one goes out. New book, furniture, clothing, bedding, towels: same deal. 

Digital clutter: look how tidy!

• I'd been keeping old guitar, cooking, and crochet magazines because I might get to them someday. (Ah, the little lies we tell ourselves!) Instead of giving them valuable apartment real estate, I scanned the articles/projects I liked, and put the magazines down in my building's laundry room where they went on to find new homes. I now have digital clutter instead of physical clutter, but at least it's hidden away in a folder on a hard drive and not taking up space where I can actually see it.

Now I just need to figure out what to do with the detritus that somehow accumulates on flat surfaces. There is not a counter, table top, or cabinet that doesn't at some point fall prey to the migrating piles of paper that infest this house. It's like a plague or something. Or an STD. The piles just get passed from one flat surface to another and never really go away. How can I deal with this stuff? Someboday save me! I'm open to suggestion, people.

My goal, as I get older, is to have less and less physical stuff in my living space. I'd love to reduce what I own every year, so that by the time I die, my house is almost entirely empty except for the stacks of lush Persian carpets to gently break my final fall.

Sigh. A girl can dream.

Things I've Learned - Fail Better

This morning I managed to stand up in the shower for ten whole minutes without needing to sit down. I've been so sick the last few days that everything but breathing has fallen by the wayside. There are any number of reasons I've been ill: The Imp's in daycare, a seething petri dish vector of disease if ever there was one; I've been taking on too much, running around trying to be all things to all people; but mostly I think I just had a little almost-breakdown in the last two weeks.

I've been thinking a lot of my past work in project management - there comes a time, on a troublesome project, when you just look at the patchwork that's been done to fix problems as they come up, and stop everything. Look at things from a new perspective, assess as objectively as you can, and then decide to tear the whole thing down and start over fresh. That's what the last two weeks have been like for me on an emotional level. And suffering through The Cold Virus of Doom That Will Not Die has slowed me down enough to really deal with some things for the first time.

A couple of weeks ago I connected some dots and gained some insights into the roots of problems I've struggled with all my life. Issues of fear, of giving up before I even try, of reacting with towering anger to minor setbacks. To an outside observer, what I'm going through doesn't look like much, but internally it has shaken me, rocked me to my core. I've had to rethink my approach to everything: relationships, business, and especially to parenting. Looking at patterns from my childhood and sifting out that which is good to pass on to The Imp, and finding a way to acknowledge and discard that which is not.

I don't have any pictures of me sick. So here's one of The Imp.

I think turning 40 has been a catalyst for much of this introspection. Realizing I don't care what people think anymore has opened the door, but it's events of the last couple of weeks that have really knocked me down and made me figure out how to pick myself up again. The revelation of the the source of so much of my anger has given me the freedom to consciously change the way I react when The Imp is acting up. A couple of mornings ago as we were cuddling before breakfast, I said to him, "Let's have a good day today. No hitting, no kicking, no scratching, no pinching. And no shouting. What do you think? Wouldn't that be great?" He looked at me and very seriously said, "And no naughty corner."

My heart: breaking.

"That's right. No naughty corner. Let's be gentle with each other today."

"Okay, Mommy."

And not for nothing, the last two days he hasn't hit me once. We've had two whole days without a trip to the naughty corner.

Despite me being so physically ill I could barely manage to bundle The Imp off to daycare in the morning, things have been better than I have any right to expect.

I'm not saying everything's magically all better now. I will struggle, I will fall down, I will fail utterly. But right now I'm feeling like the falling down won't be the calamitous, paralyzing thing it's been in the past.

Sometimes you really do need to stop what you're doing and tear it down. Rebuild from a stronger foundation, fail better next time.

And be gentle with each other.

I just hope next time it won't take getting the plague to make me see that.