Unexpected Consequence

Recently I discovered an unexpected consequence to planting myself and developing roots. Jeff and I have lived in this house for several years – 7 for him and 6 ½ for me. That is by far the longest either of us have ever lived anywhere. For him, the previous record was about 3 years and for me it was 2 years. He grew up as an Air Force brat and I, well I just moved a lot – particularly as a child. That I remember I went to about 12 different schools before I graduated and for Jeff it was a lot too. For different reasons, we both continued our nomadic lifestyles as adults.

But then we bought this house (actually, he bought it and I got it with the marriage) and though we expected to move again in a fairly short period of time, we are still here. And more importantly, we think we’ll be here for quite awhile! So I guess you could say that for the first time for either of us, we have roots. It has been nice keeping the same address for a long time. No change of address forms have been needed, thank you very much!

So what is this recently discovered, unexpected consequence to remaining in one place? Belongings. Stuff. Clutter. Whatever you want to call it. I have always been a weird sort of packrat. I have always been one to keep things and pack them away, for a time. But I always sorted, donated and discarded (a lot!), when I was packing for a move. It was always my goal to move as little stuff as possible, so consequently every year or two, I’d do major dumping of stuff. During these dumping frenzies, I lost some sentimentality and got realistic (do I really want that badly enough to move it?) about what I actually wanted. It worked.

I have looked around my house lately and thought where did all this stuff come from? There is stuff everywhere. Do I really need or use all of it? No, I’m sure I don’t. Now to be perfectly honest, some of it’s not ours. We’re storing stuff for his mom and for a friend who is out of the country. But still, we’ve got a lot of added stuff, that frankly I’m getting tired of looking at and dealing with. Even though I’m not planning to move anytime soon, I think it’s about time to work up a good dumping frenzy and do a little de-cluttering. But not now - I think I’ll wait till summer is over – this is Arizona (and HOT) after all!