It’s been over two years since we moved into our new house. Except we still don’t feel moved in. And every day that goes by, it feels more and more unmanageable and less and less like our dream home.
We came into this house with three kids and one on the way. With us came all the stuff that a child between the ages of newborn and 7 could require. Plus all the memories hubby and I had amassed over our 30+ years.
We’ve both reached our limits. Tired of the chaos. Tired of the clutter. Tired of the mess. Tired of the stuff.
Yet trying to deal with it feels like a lost cause. Organizing with four kids running around is like trying to lay mulch in a tornado. I may get one area cleaned up and organized but in the time it takes me to accomplish one small area, my kids have destroyed another, larger area.
Hubby has reached the limits as our closets spill over. It came to a head this weekend after a week of storms and two years of parking on the driveway. When we moved into this house, we traded our spacious three-car garage and huge circle driveway for a beautiful yard. And hubby is tired of his car being relegated to an outside parking spot while the bikes and buggies and baby gear take over the garage.
He spent most of Saturday morning making room for things by clearing a few pint glasses out of the cupboard and dusting the bar cabinet. I spent the rest of the day organizing the garage, making actual room for a car.
Part of that organizing involved driving an hour and half round trip to my parents house to drop off all the baby gear we no longer need until I can get it to a new owner. All the things that my babies have outgrown, that have been a part of our lives for past almost 9 years, across the ocean and back and much of it gifts from our family, some which are no longer here with us.
And that is where the chaos stems from: how does one separate the stuff from the memories?
We moved into this house with boxes full of baby clothes, ready for a new little baby that never came. Those mounds of baby girl clothes that will never again grace one of my children’s bodies have been shoved into the backs of closets, moved from here to there and sorted more times than I can count because I haven’t been able to bring myself to give it all away.
I’ve come to terms with not having any more kids. And it’s not just the memories anymore, either. Those clothes and baby gear are a symbol of all we’ve accomplished over the past 9 years. They represent all that we’ve invested in our family and children.
And while I’m happy to give them away to friends or families in need, I don’t have local friends having babies and many people don’t want piles of used clothes (though I have picked a few special items in excellent condition to gift to friends and family). I even tried selling them through local consignment sales but the hours of prep I put in along with the driving to and from the sales amounted in very little actual ending up in a new home (and even less in profits!)
The events of this weekend brought me to a new place in my journey: ready to donate.
Sunday was spent sorting through all those clothes one last time and placing them into their final piles:
- save for me and my kids (my most favorite and important pieces)
- save for family and friends (my other favorite pieces that are good condition or hold memories that mean something to my family)
- take to a consignment store (everything that is in fantastic condition)
- donate (all the things that don’t fit in one of the above categories)
I ended up with three trash bags full of stuff to donate. It’s hard to explain why it’s taken me so long to get to this place. I know that donating helps families in need and while I usually feel good about helping my community, for some reasons those baby clothes have a hold on me. I feel this weird need to know where they go, what happens to to them, to get something back or some kind of closure with their future.
But for now, I need to keep our present intact, even if that means parting with the bits and pieces of our past.
