We work so hard to get the home we want.
Our first home, then the next one with the extra bedroom and the baby. Then, a bit more garden and a nicer neighbourhood. We stretch ourselves on the mortgage and go bigger, better, a spare room, renovate, decorate, debate style and colours, textures and space.
Update the beds and the sofas; gather paintings and photos, treasured gifts, assorted rugs, children’s creations and great finds. Memories kept safe in an object linked to a time and a place, a person, a moment past.
We gather the toys that collect dust, the exercise bike we absolutely need along with the tummy trimmer, the yoga mats, the balance ball, weights, oh and then there’s the cross trainer for goodness sake. We don’t use them but keep them because one day…
The books, there are so, so, so many books. Fiction galore, art and travel, then the many hundreds linked to work – every kind of mental health and therapy, every kind of diet and health, food, nutrition, recipes – and the collections resulting from the latest new hobby that help when asked what would you like for Christmas and are never used (wire jewellery making, fleecing, exciting pottery glazing, wild naked gardening etc).
The things we saved for or that friends passed on. Those we searched and searched to find the perfect one, the ones we could hardly afford and the ones we stumbled upon amazingly in a pile somebody left out for recycling.
How do we give them up? How do we choose?
How to part with the things that have meant so much, that you love and that you are proud of.
Maybe it’s a bit like losing the toned arms and tummy, the pert bottom and glossy hair and giving up the significant job.
Will I still be interesting looking older, without a beautiful house, without all our stuff?
Will we miss it all so much it’s another regret or will we feel free and lighter. Something tells me it’s the latter but dare we risk it?
