Moving in the Right Direction, Stuff-Wise

I was thinking today how we acquire stuff and discard stuff. Year in and year out. For the last couple of weeks we've been burning faster than we were filling, you might say. And that's a good thing. It's horrifying to think how many possessions we still have, especially considering how much we have disposed of over the years.

When I moved to Austin, in 1975, I couldn't fill a small one bedroom apartment with the stuff I owned. Sad. I wanted stuff. I even bought some furniture for that place. When I combined my stuff with FFP's in 1976, it was a little crowded in his house which was probably 800 square feet. When we moved a block away in 1977 (twenty-nine years ago this month), we had a larger house. We filled it with a business we were running and all the stuff it needed and things we were eager to own.We bought a building and moved the business there. We remodeled a few times and redecorated, stuff coming and going. Always thinking it was the ultimate stuff. One remodel made room for the business (smaller now) to move back. With the complications that engendered.

It makes me feel better to pare the stuff down. But it's going so slowly. The garage is looking pretty good now. But my office and the spare room are still a sea of things being sorted and dealt with. There are closets and shelves begging for a good cleaning. There are large pieces of furniture that will ultimately need to go. I get depressed about it sometimes, but at least the needle is moving in the right direction at the moment.