Last night I had one of my recurring bad dreams.
The constants are these: I am frantically trying to get to the airport to make my plane (usually an international flight), and I am running really late. Total chaos ensues.
The variables are the forms of chaos: get lost driving to the airport, can't find gate/ticket info/people I'm flying with, long line at ticket counter and the plane is minutes from take-off, my children are with me and I'm trying to keep track of them, their bags, my bags, etc. It's a very, very stressful dream and I'm always so relieved when I wake up.
In last night's exciting episode I was trying to find the ticket counter and then check a bunch of bags and boxes filled with random stuff. The flight was scheduled to leave in ten minutes and I was a disorganized mess. The boxes weren't sealed, some of my belongings were in plastic grocery bags and I was trying to stuff them into suitcases and duffel bags. There was so much STUFF! I'm talking little plastic toys and dolls, old books and papers, dollar-store trinkets — a bunch of crap, really. It wasn't working. Stuff was falling out everywhere and oodles of it didn't even fit in the bags. Aaaaak!
I woke up, thank goodness, and it was morning.
In the past this dream is all about the flying. I know why I have it — because I HATE flying. HATE! (Yes, I'm yelling.) But this time the part that felt like the bigger stress was all the crap I was carrying.
So I awoke with renewed enthusiasm for purging some of the stuff in my house.
Relinquishing some things is so easy for me, like clothes. I could whittle my wardrobe to a single loin cloth (and maybe a thick robe for winter) without batting an eye. Clothes aren't emotional for me. I don't love them or covet them. That's not to say that I don't enjoy dressing nicely or having nice clothes – I just don't feel attached.
Where my attachments lie are in the little things. Sadly, I now realize, I have a hard time purging all the exact crap I was trying to fit in my luggage — my childhood collection of paper dolls, baby clothes my daughters wore, a collection of tiny painted chairs, hoards of beautiful scrapbook paper, a gallon of shells. Things like that darling little mouse family in the photo above. I love their fuzziness and their little faces. I might miss them if they were gone.
Yikes. I fear there is a canyon-sized gap between me and people who live in those tiny homes.
~
That said, I do plan to make some headway on simplifying this coming week. I may try photographing some of my sentimental possessions, saving the photos and letting the actual items go. The important word there is may. I may part with some things and . . . I may not. ;)
