it was so strange for me to watch. i have always considered myself to be one that wasn't a "hoarder", one that didn't really cling to stuff, one that could throw out just about anything and not really give it much of a second thought.
until recently.
i am learning through blogging that i have no shame. seriously. so if you are a tidy tim or tina, hold onto your britches before looking at this photo (veronica, i'm serious. this picture could cause you heart failure!).
i'm not kidding... don't scroll down unless you really want to see some serious mess.
this, friends, is my glorious garage.
why in the blazes are you showing us that, you might be asking and what in the heck has happened to you since moving to california... very valid questions from my peeps that know me as "the girl who labels her toy bins" (yes, i still have small miscellaneous).
i used to be mostly neat and tidy (mother and college friends, i can hear your gasp from here! it began sometime AFTER college and sometime before parenthood.). i used to have all my stuff organized. two years ago on mother's day my "gift" from my hubby (requested by moi) was time... time to go down to the basement and label and organize all our storage items. i literally spent 8 hours, on the day designated for me, putting crap (i mean, our valuable possessions) into bins and labeling them. and i LOVED it. on days when my kiddos had destroyed our playroom, i used to think "at least i have the basement".
but our current existence is a wee bit different. since we are in housing limbo and since we live in the great state of california (bountiful with sunshine and lacking in storage), our garage is a giant endless pool of "stuff". and so up until now, i have closed the door and pretended that it just didn't exist. if i needed something that was buried in that pile, i would send my less organized (but totally fabulous) hubby out into the great abyss in search of whatever.
last weekend, though, i started thinking about it. i began to wonder how we could possibly have so much stuff--- what could we possibly have in that garage that we really needed if our entire house was filled? sure, we still have stuff in storage that will eventually get unpacked when we reach our final destination (think fine china), and sure we have some bins of items that belong in storage for certain periods of time (think Christmas decorations and size 3t clothing items)... but what about the rest of it? a pile that big couldn't possibly be filled with only things that fall into the "need" category. beginning to embrace that i might have a little "hoarder" in me- i decided to open the door and get to the bottom of that mess.
in just a few hours, i had literally emptied three storage bins of things that fall into the "don't need" category. first, i listed them on a local mothers club message board "for sale" and then the things that didn't sell were placed into a box for donation to the big MOPS annual garage sale.
and i'm still going. i currently have all of my outgrown infant clothing listed for sale on ebay (and to date am making enough dough to fund e's spring and fall wardrobe).
but those were the kids bins. true to my belief about myself, i had no issue getting rid of anything we no longer need. the problem lied in what i found in my bins. as i began to go through them, suddenly the "sell" pile and the "donate" pile stopped increasing and the "keep" pile seemed to be growing.
p had fun rolling around with a rectangle that represents my first experience with knitting. my sister was into it and showed me how to do it. i then went to town practicing. i made the piece you see below and a scarf. after that, i wasn't really digging it anymore. i could check "learn to knit" off of goals but that's where the hobby ended for me. but i didn't feel like i wanted to part with my evidence. and so now stashed in my garage was the little rectangle, the scarf, and the needles... doing not a bit of good but taking up room in a bin.
and while i could justify that little stash, the problem lied in the fact that i have LOTS of little stashes like that. things that i want to "save" while really having little to no purpose. and when you add a lifetime of those things together, you get a whole lot of junk. to me, those things have value. as i peruse through them, i am reminded of my accomplishments, favorite moments, former hobbies, hobbies i wish i still had time for...
things my mom has given me from my childhood (seriously- she brought the above puppet to me a few years ago... i don't remember playing with it, or the nightmares that playing with it would certainly induce. heather, stacy, help me out here! where in carnation did that thing come from?). and yet i save them.
and of course, THAT really got me thinking. why do we save stuff? what are we trying to accomplish? do we meet our goal? or does saving stuff just turn into trouble down the line?
and while i could certainly justify keeping lots of things, i realized that by doing so i was embracing something that was so wrong- i was finding personal value in stuff. i admit it, even though i know that my value lies in Truth, my save pile told a very different story.
it showed that if i'm not careful, i find value in all the wrong places.
and so in that moment, i decided to apply the same "get rid of it" mentality that i seem to embrace so easily with other people's stuff to my own stuff.
and it was liberating.
and i don't think i could write this post without referencing mathew 6:19-21
don't hoard treasure down here where it gets eaten by moths and corroded by rust or- worse! - stolen by burglars. stockpile treasure in heaven, where it's safe from moth, rust and burglars.it's obvious, isn't it? the place where your treasure is, is the place you'll most want to be, and end up being.
because the truth of the matter is that my motive isn't recycling (which is good) or helping others (also good)- my motive, in that moment was in being aligned with my maker and living out the life i am called to live.
i'm human, so i'm pretty sure i'll deal with this issue again. i'm pretty sure that i will find myself collecting items that don't have value- but today i want to embrace my "treasure in heaven" rather than my "treasure on earth".
and i ask you to call me out on it if you see it happening again- because the truth is that is also what we are called to do. we should do it gently, we should do it in love, but we should do it.
my sisters and i had to have that chat with my mom back in march- and again this past weekend when she moved into her new apartment (my sisters garage has finally been renovated into a three room suite for my mother). it wasn't a conversation that i really ever wanted to have with my mom- but let me tell you, she's working on embracing it.
and because of her, i am too.
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