Monday, August 10, 2009

living free

It has been a while since I posted, and I had some posts I wanted to write. Posts about BlogHer, about the Ford Ride 'N Drive event, about my new blog, about other things. This post is not about any of those topics.

Some things have been going on in the lives of people around me lately, and subsequently in my own life, that have me thinking an awful lot about change. These events, coupled with an extreme lack of ability to FOCUS (which I don't believe is related but who knows), have really pressed home that I need a drastic change in my life. Maybe more than one. Because for whatever reason, I'm unhappy. And it's affecting all of the areas in my life right now.

Longtime blog readers will know that I have three areas in my life that provide me with no end of frustration: my cluttered home, my weight, and my finances. All of them, I believe, being somewhat intertwined. If I can only suss out the reasons for my failures in this area and solve those problems, move past them, I feel I can go on to achieve all the dreams I have.

One common thread that runs through my dreams is that I want to live a life rich in EXPERIENCES. Very few of these dreams revolve around STUFF. Arguably, the only one that does is my dream of owning and operating my Not House On The Rock house one day - and even that could be considered an experience.

The stuff I collect around me is just that: STUFF. It's not really a collection, per se. There's no structure to it, no organization. It's just things I've acquired over 30 years of living with which I cannot, for some reason, bear to part.

Except more and more lately, I CAN bear to part with them. I have been. I continue to do so. Sometimes I have a radical dream of selling everything I own on ebay and going on to live a stuff-free life. Mostly this dream scares the hell out of me, for reasons I cannot entirely define. (If I COULD, I probably wouldn't have all the stuff to begin with.) But more and more lately, the dream thrills me. Titillates me like a secret lover, whispering seductively to me from the darkness. 'Go on,' it says. 'Sell your things. Get rid of them. Effect change in your life. Move on. Let go. Achieve your dreams.'

The doubtful, clingy part of me resists moving on to what might be a new joyous phase in my life. What if I need those things one day? What if I miss them? What about the memories attached to them?

The voice whispers to me that this could just be the defining factor in my life. That I might just be able to accomplish some of my biggest dreams right now if I did this one thing. I might be able to pay off a bunch of debt if I did this. I might feel freer, more creative, less confined. I might be able to WRITE. I might be able to breathe in my own home. I might be happier. I might be able to move to a bigger house in a better neighborhood. I might accomplish all of these things and more if I just give up on the things that are holding me back.

Is selling off the pieces of my life the right thing to do? Will it help me move on to bigger and better things? Will I feel freer? Will I BE freer? Will I be able to accomplish my dreams?

I don't know the answers to these questions. But the idea that the answer might be YES fills me with hope for the first time in a while.

A life that is, for a while, empty of (most) possessions, but full of experience. A life worth living.

2 comments:

  1. If it helps, I got rid of 4 more boxes of stuff this past weekend. I just chucked it into the trash. The stuff would not have been useful to anybody. I also boxed up George's Monty Python "dolls" to be sold on EBay. I feel more free. There is now even more open space in our apartment. :-)

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  2. I know a lady who pinned all of her expectations and goals of life on being thing. Everything would be perfect as soon as she became thin. Well, she's now thin and she's miserable. Realizing (or not) that being thin had nothing to do with her living her life the way she wanted to and hadn't been the thing that prevented her from attaining her goals.

    In regards to be free of stuff and free of weight and free of financial stress, if all those things were corrected tomorrow, you may still find there is a void. I'm not trying to be a wet blanket but I see this all over the place and people who are blind sided by the fact that this great evolution hadn't happened after they reached goal x,y, and z.

    All the things you want to experience, you can do now. If wait until your finances, weight, clutter are all taken care of, you might be waiting forever.

    Perhaps mars is in retrograde:)

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