Paring Down

Remember high school graduation? I do. I remember it in all of its poofy-haired, pizza-faced glory.

When I graduated, I was as excited to receive gifts for my someday-house as I was to receive money for college textbooks. 

I still remember the plastic canister set a lady from church gifted me. I tucked them in the cedar chest along with all the hodge-podge gadgets I'd inherited when my mom and aunt cleaned out my grandparents' house. Most of the things that no one else in the family needed for their kitchens (because they already had them) landed in a pile for me to have in a few years when I launched out on my own for real. 

I didn't care how big that pile grew over the course of my college years. In my mind, I could never have enough for that grand day when I had my own home with all my own everything. And indeed, I wanted everything. 

My desire to have all the things didn't feel like greed in my mind. It felt like an accomplishment. To be able to say I had all the things I thought adults were supposed to have to be independent would be a mark of success. I could share them with people who came to my house, because I always dreamed of a house that would be a hub of activity. 

And as I sprinted toward my late twenties, my home was just that. In all my singleness and loneliness, I had friends over all the time, and I wanted to meet every need they had. I wanted a place setting for twelve so I could host the whole women's Bible study for dinner without using paper plates. I wanted all the stamps and ink pads my company sold so I could have scrapbooking parties and let everyone use everything they could ever need. I wanted all the toys for all the ages so all my friends with kids could leave their little ones with me while they went out on dates. 

For a while, I drowned in the schedule and the stuff. 

Then I got married, and we combined households, and suddenly I could pick between fifteen different versions of a 9x13 baking dish. I could choose any one of a number of vacuums. We had more couches than rooms to put them in. 

So. Much. Stuff. 

So. Little. Room. 

Naturally that led me to want a bigger house. A four or five bedroom house, so we could have room for all the things and continue to share them - if ever our schedule calmed to where we could actually do that. As it was, home was more like a storage unit that we visited in the evenings for a quick nap. 

I'm not sure where it began in these years since we were married, but God has shifted my mind into pare-down mode.

We've cleaned out the house multiple times and held big rummage sales. We've moved and scaled back. We've been purposeful in our purchases to make sure the things we bring in are meaningful and have lasting value. We've been mindful of our present season as we go along and tried to keep our possessions in line with the present purpose of our home.

In the work we do, all the sharing and activity take place in the main parts of our building, but our home has become a sanctuary for the two of us. This is the space where we come to get away from the bustle. To reconnect, process, and rest. 

Perhaps that led to my conversation with Ryan a couple of weeks ago (after we worked on sorting through some of his mom's possessions) in which I declared that stuff and space mean less to me now than they ever had. I told him I know we pared down to a smaller living space to come to this apartment, but in truth, I'd be content to live in a smaller space even yet when we buy a house again someday. I'd be willing to let go of even more than what we have now and it would be okay. 

It's not that stuff is bad or wrong. It's not. But it no longer marks accomplishment for me. I think it may be that it marks maintenance, and I'd rather use my time to do something besides clean and maintain. I've seen the value in less-is-more and rest-is-more, especially in the last six months. 

Make no mistake: I love the things God has blessed us with. I love the story they tell, the history they have, and the home they make. But I've learned we don't need a million things within the walls to have a home. 

So now when I browse house listings, instead of my heart beating faster over huge homes with walkout basements, I find myself drawn to anything with only three digits in the square footage. 

For me, for some reason, it truly is about paring down and all the little things.