The First Step in Creating a New Life is to Get Rid of Everything you Don’t Want.
Long before my cancer diagnosis, I worked to declutter my part of our lives. It’s important to me emotionally. It makes me feel like I have less to take care of, less to maintain.
After 66 years on this planet, it continues to surprise me how clutter affects me. It is literally mental baggage for me. Each piece, like an old Nevis print I had in a pine box in the basement from when I had travelled there to consider purchasing a small hotel, makes my brain consider that period of time in my life when I am no longer in that phase. When I see it, I feel it dragging me back to that period in my life rather than allowing me to live in the present. It’s almost a regressive stimulation for me and I need to move forward… so, as with many of the material things I have had, I took it down, boxed it and gave it away.
I suppose this is one of the areas in which I am overly sensitive to certain things but I cannot help it. It’s my memory and if I have something in my life, the memories around that ‘thing’ stay part of my life.
For example, today I went through the storage area under our stairs and found two full large recycling bags full of old paper files that could be shedded as well as the two boxes they were stored in. Doing this literally makes me fell lighter and gives me great pleasure.
My life is a Steve and Yim thing now. I want things that we’ve done in the house and on the walls, not things that I’ve done before us.
I want to get continue to rid myself of more of what I own now and simplify…
I want to live a life which will provide me contentment. I want to feel that my days are full. I realize I am not going to change the world or find that one true purpose to lead a meaningful life but I can lead a life of goodness and be interested in new things. I am healthy and still relatively young.
That being said, at this point I am enjoying my life. We are waking up without any stress, having tea and spending most mornings exercising our bodies before lunch and then enjoying eating healthy foods together.
Decluttering continues.
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