The Art of Simplification in a World of Junk (aka. I Have a Problem)

I've been feeling the need for simplification lately. This feeling really came to a head at the end of my pregnancy when I organized and scoured my house from top to bottom--no room or surface was left untouched. Now that the baby is 3 months old, the sleepless nights that accompany a newborn are subsiding, and I'm feeling more like my old self. Time to get a jumpstart on spring cleaning and life simplification.

Let me be frank--my house is full of crap. We have too much furniture, too many clothes, too many toys, too many knick-knacks, too much, too much, too much. I know this. I have always known this. We moved from a 1000 square foot house with a one car garage packed full of crap to a nearly 3000 square foot house with a two car garage THAT IS STILL FULL OF CRAP! I complain about our garage full of junk, yet I am partially responsible for filling it up. I complain that we have too much crap, yet I buy more.

Case in point: the lockers. When a friend of mine was moving, she advertised that she was selling a bunch of stuff. Knowing that she had great taste and lots of vintage goodies, Dave and I trotted on over to her house to check out a set of school lockers. In her cool 1930s bungalow, the 1960s era cool greenish blue lockers looked fabulous. They looked just like the lockers I used in high school--real vintage! My eyes twinkled with excitement...I wanted them, had to have them, couldn't live without them. $150 worth of awesomeness. Of course, they were heavy as hell and hard to move. We recruited a guy friend to help us move them. David used his legendary packing skills to strategically fit them into our Chrysler Pacifica. We unloaded them just inside the garage doors (HEAVY!), and this is where they sit today. They've been there for almost exactly one year. One year. Oy.

Oh, and have I mentioned my $8 thrift store chair? I have had plans to learn how to reupholster furniture for years now. Not wanting to tear up my furniture or risk ruining a truly fabulous vintage piece, I have had my eyes peeled for a chair that I could practice on. Imagine my surprise and excitement when I found the perfect specimen for $8! A little club chair covered in yellow crushed velvet (!) with skinny wooden legs and wood armrests. Ah, PERFECT! I bought the chair in June. Right now, it's sitting next to another vintage chair in my living room creating a little seating area. It looks like I'm preparing for a garage sale. Not. Even. Kidding.

My other problem is collecting vintage furniture and miscellaneous crap from family members. Don't get me wrong, I acquired all of my favorite pieces in this manner, but when you're a sentimental furniture-aholic it becomes hard to know when enough is enough. We have a few (4) too many dressers and vanities, 2 extra dining tables (in the garage), bed rails from an old bunk bed set (surely we could use that wood, right? Ha.), boxes from David's grandpa that I haven't even looked through, a butcher block island that Dave's grandpa made (which I DO love and intend to use), an extra full bed (more vintage family stuff), and a mudroom full of more crap. What is wrong with me? Clearly, I have a problem.

My furniture addiction doesn't stop there. I also have a tendency to buy crappy Target furniture under the guise of organization. We have 4 Target bookcases and a TV armoire that are not being utilized properly and need to go. Granted, these things worked well in my little 1000 square foot house with no storage space. The house i live in now has TONS of storage space that goes unused because I'm still storing all my crap on these shelves. Something has got to give! We actually have some hand made (by David) furniture on loan to my grandma for her farm house, too. David made three side tables because we thought we needed them. Whyyyyy? Who knows, but we must have really needed them (Pshaw!).

Sooooooo, my goal is to properly utilize all of my lovely vintage pieces (within 2011), get rid of what I cannot find a use for, and NOT buy or accept more crap. This will be hard, given the extent of my problems and my ideas for some of the pieces in my garage...like turning two pedestal bases from one long table into two smaller tables. Wha? I know. It's a problem. I'm working on it. (I will post pictures when I can get out into my garage without freezing my arse off)

Perfection Reflections

Last night, I was reading an article in an old magazine. It was about a mother's relationship with her daughter. It reads:

"If you truly want to connect with someone or you just want to keep a relationship fresh and vibrant, it takes more than nodding, agreeing, or even promising a puppy. It takes finding out who the person really is, what he or she really cares about, what he or she

really wants. And that involves listening. The kind of listening that has no agenda, isn't driven by ego, doesn't have to have all the answers, and doesn't have to fix everything. That kind of listening comes from wanting to discover, not needing to show what we already know. Because no matter how hard we try or how committed we are, relationships get tired and people float apart--unless we listen up."

Reading this happened to coincide with a good friend's post about imperfect friendships. After reading these passages, I spent hours reflecting upon my relationships, past and present. What I've come to realize is that my most cherished relationships are also the most imperfect relationships in my life. They are also my longest relationships, like my marriage or the friendship I share with my best friend. They are fraught with flaws. They are those relationships that I've cried into, yelled into, and spent hours and hours laughing into. Those that I've poured my heart into. I'm so thankful for those relationships because I've learned to practice forgiveness, I've had to compromise, I've had to put myself and my needs last, and it wasn't about my ego. It isn't just about how that person makes ME feel, it's about how I make THEM feel. It's about wanting to find out everything about that person, and accepting them-flaws and all. It's about listening when they are having a rough day and reading between the lines. It's about their wants and needs, not just my own. It's about seeing someone at their best and worst and loving them just the same. It's about allowing them to be who they are and accepting them unconditionally, with no judgement. It's NOT about having or being a sounding board. It's NOT about how someone looks next to you.

Too many people give up on relationships because they are imperfect and never get to that sweet spot where you look back and see how far you've come together and commit to forge on no matter what. There truly is a rainbow on the other side of that storm.

I have spent way too many hours striving for PERFECTION in all areas of my life, not just relationships. I even have an ancient myspace blog post about how my life was "Absolute Perfection" at the time. In fact, perfection itself has caused much of the turmoil and keeps me from doing the things I really want to do. For years, I didn't invite people to my house because it was small and imperfect, and I was ashamed. My quest for the perfect marriage kept me from seeing things I needed to see and saying things I needed to say. My need to "appear" perfect to others and to myself keeps me constantly unsatisfied with who I am and afraid to be myself around others. I get discouraged that I don't know how to make this blog beautiful, so I don't blog even though I really want to.

It isn't just me, either. Society as a whole is fascinated by perfection--the perfect body, the perfect marriage, perfect sex, perfect children, the perfect house, and the perfect life. Those things don't really exist. Therefore, my New Year's Resolution is to stop striving for perfection, accept that we are all imperfect (myself included), and allow life to unfold the way it is supposed to...with flaws and imperfections.