Packrat's history

I come from a long line of packrats. My parents purchased the home of my grandparents (my dad's folks). The house sat on nearly an acre of land, and it was surrounded by seven sheds (tool shed, pump house for the well, toy shed, massive six car garage attached to the "cat shed", plus two more the size of two car garages. It also originally included a barn and farmland, which was sold earlier to another family intending to raise horses.

First my grandfather, and then my father, packed those buildings to the rafters. They both had hoarding tendencies. Why have a few five gallon pails when you can have two hundred? Why not stop by the side of the road to pick up a discarded bungee cord, despite it being the 80th one you own? You never know when you might use two broken refrigerators, thousands of tools, thirty fishing poles, a boat with a hole in it, a lifetime of chopped logs for the fireplace, fifteen staplers, and on and on and on.

We weren't poor. We were middle class. My guess would be that for my father, things meant security. He was the youngest son with a decade gap between his next-oldest brother, and he was alone a lot since both his parents worked multiple jobs. Things can insulate you from feeling lonely, and I suspect that is his underlying issue.

I was an obese child with major self-esteem issues. I also have a terrible memory. My things serve as my memories, my barriers, my cocoon. Things started to get out of control when we had two children. Now we live in plastic land, with toys they don't play with, clothes they don't wear, plus bins of stuff anticipating the next phase of their lives, the next size, the next development stage. It all amounts to TOO MUCH STUFF.

I want to raise them in a house that feels welcoming, calm and orderly. I don't want it to be sterile, but I also don't want the teetering piles of stuff everydamnwhere. I am pondering ways they can  help in the process. They can choose which toys we discard, and which clothes they like. Hopefully, my husband will see the changes and join the process, too.

It begins in earnest

Here's where we begin.

We may have a place to live, and I may have a job, but I won't know either for a little while. In the meantime, we guess on dates for a moving truck and we pack up our lives.

Let me explain.

We currently live in St. Cloud, MN. My husband accepted a one-year teaching job at a university, hoping that it would become a long term position. On his first day, he learned of the severe financial situation faced by the university. Needless to say, his job was not extended. I am a children's librarian by trade, but I could not find full time employment in my field in this area. I shifted from working full time to being a stay-at-home mom. It was a gift to spend so much time with my young children, although I did not always excel at my role. Despite our plans to send our son to an affordable Montessori school this fall, we decided that because we could not find enough work in our fields to support our family, that we would both join the job market to see what we could find.

After many applications, interviews and rejections, I have a job offer in St. Paul, contingent on the most invasive, intense hoops I've ever experienced. Physical examination. Background check in two states. Employment, references and education check. Criminal check. Driving record check. Credit history. My husband's benefits and paychecks end at August 31st. I'm hoping my job can start mid-August. I try not to freak out thinking about it.

Our lease ends in about a month, but I don't want to commute from St. Cloud to St. Paul. We will just pay for two locations for a month, thus saving me hours of driving time. We applied for a house, nicer than where we are now, but ultimately smaller. Our current duplex has an office with coat closet and shoe storage, dining room, living room, kitchen, three bedrooms, upstairs bathroom, built in storage in two bedrooms, a full basement and a two car garage. Our tentative rental house has a dining room, living room, kitchen, two bedrooms, small nook room (maybe 8 feet by 5 feet), upstairs bathroom, basement, deck and two car garage.

We have a lot of stuff.

In every move, since I first left for college in 1992, I have heard this phrase. "Wow, you have a lot of stuff." From friends, movers, family members. I gotta tell you, commenting on it does not change the fact that it exists. It really doesn't help me. All it does is make me mad and overwhelmed.

I am tired of being overwhelmed by my possessions. Suffocated by things. I hold onto silly, useless, redundant, outdated, unused items for countless reasons, but I want to change.

I want to get rid of the boxes that have remained unopened for nearly five years. I want to get ride of Rubbermaid totes full of clothes that don't fit and haven't fit for almost a decade. I want to get rid of all of the papers--letters, ticket stubs, magazines, random crap from eons ago.

I began with the bills. Most of our expenses are now paid online, but we had tons of paperwork from years past. It was spread across at least four boxes and a plastic tote. I spent a week sorting all of the papers into piles. Taxes. Individual credit cards. Retirement funds. Bank statements. Paychecks. Car insurance. Health insurance. Vet records. Utilities. Leases. Miscellaneous stuff. I kept all tax records, pay stubs, leases and health insurance. Everything else, I kept the last three years. I shredded the rest. Bags and bags and bags of paper (that my children spread around the carpet and played in). It is now organized in well-marked file folders.

I sold a few things on Craigslist: barely used cloth diapers, a bed frame, some baby items the kids outgrew. My pile to sell is growing.

I sorted the two bookcases of picture books (I am a children's librarian, after all). If they were boring or lame, they went into the Savers box. That shaved off nearly a full bookcase. As did a children's bike with flat tires, two rusty file cabinets, a ton of hand-me-down children's toys, a printer and scanner we didn't use, my bike with two flat tires, a lamp with a broken knob, books I'd kept from my last job, intending to make purses out of them (uh huh....right). I made a pile of about 40 books I'd carried with me for years, some I'd read and others I didn't. Im skimming one a day to see if I actually want to keep them. So far Ive only kept three out of fifteen.

Baby steps. That's where I am now, but every step matters. If we do downsize to a smaller place, I will welcome it. I want to release the clutter, instead choosing fewer, higher quality things to create our home. I want a sofa instead of a crappy futon. I want clean surfaces. I want functionality, organization, calmness.

You gotta start somewhere, right?