Where I’ve come from - a catalyst for change

During my uni days my bedroom was getting more and more jam packed.  I hated it, because it was always so messy.  I found it too stressful to work in, and found myself studying either at the dining table or the library.  My sister hated it, too, because she shared the room with me.  It was the size of two bedrooms, but we still had to share. My sister is a bit of a neat freak.  I sometimes wonder if that’s my fault... 

I wished at the time that I didn’t have so much stuff.  I wanted to be the sort of person who could just put everything they owned into the back of a car.  I didn’t realise that I could have been that if I wanted to.  Instead, I chose what seemed a whole heap cooler at the time - the sort of person who bought a new CD every week or two.  I listen to very few of those CDs anymore.  I know now that spending breeds spending

I left home and had not one car boot full of my stuff, but probably five or six. Or maybe more.  I couldn’t take it all with me at once.  My sister was moving town at the same time, so my parents got a big trailer and moved us both at once.  Just that stuff filled the boot and backseat of my sedan. Twice.  And I’d left stuff back home.  

I moved house twice while I lived in that town. The second one was into my husband’s house when we got married.  It was a big effort to move, both times.  I didn’t realise that it didn’t need to be.  

But then, a few months after we were married, we decided to pack up and head overseas for two years.  We were only taking what we needed for the two years with us.  Everything else was going into storage.  

As I began packing things into boxes to go into the storage facility I kept thinking but what if I don’t want this in two years time?    But, we were busy getting the house ready for renting it out and didn’t have time to properly go through stuff.  I got rid of quite a few things, but could have got rid of so much more.  I didn’t realise that I was right, and I was going to be storing stuff that I just got rid of when it came out of boxes two years later.  

I didn’t bring anything home with me that I didn’t want, when we came back to Australia.  I gave bags and bags of stuff to the girl who looked after our house.  She was so grateful, because she only earned a few dollars a day and couldn’t afford much.  

Then I had my very own house for the first time.  A whole house.  With just my stuff in it. (As opposed to moving into my husband’s house that he had already furnished himself.)  And I was in it all day most days, because I was now home with a baby.  And it wasn’t just my room that was messy - it was the ENTIRE HOUSE.   That’s when I started decluttering a little here and there, but unfortunately, I was still buying stuff and hoarding it. It’s been a very gradual process, thus far, but I can honestly see a difference between now and when we moved in here.