Sometimes I wonder what life would be like if my cabinets contained exactly what they needed to for daily life to run smoothly, and nothing more. If instead of a giant Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, my storage spaces were collectively used for good rather than evil (and clutter suppression – unsuccessfully). If instead of losing something and buying another because I can’t find the original, I figured out exactly what I had and saved my money by using the one we already had instead of letting it go bad or whatever.
And then I look around, and I realize that great strides have actually been made. That the girl who once had to deny a dear friend a bathroom visit (due to embarrassment over clutter) is now capable of hosting friends for dinner and tea parties. That a lot of the really severe clutter right now is either yarn or kid stuff, and that the youngest level of kid stuff can take off, eh! ‘Cuz the baby factory is officially closed. So no need to hang onto this stuff for the next generation, except for some of the toys I had as a kid that are actually cool and require no batteries to make my kids giggle.
I realize that this isn’t insurmountable. It’s possible to get to the point where my hosting a playdate does not invariably require two or three days of mad shoving of things into boxes/shoving of boxes into the sadly neglected and inaccurately named “guest room”. It’s possible to have a play area for the kids in the basement. It’s possible to find a place to put the big chalkboard I got at the university surplus sale so the kids can play “hopscotch on the wall!” all winter. It’s possible. I can do it. I can clear out the clothes that won’t fit my post-baby bod. I can whittle down my yarn stash to the stuff I really want to knit with. (Lace yarns, I am talking to you!) We’ve already stuck to the new years’ resolution to cut way back on eating out (before kids, it was three times a day, some days), and it’s amazing how much money it saves AND how much better we eat.
I think I can, I think I can, I think I can…
I KNOW I can.
