Had two Thanksgivings since my last post: on Thanksgiving and on Saturday (both links to Jay's blog posts about the two feasts). Both were lovely, with wonderful food and great company.
Thanksgiving day was my seven-week anniversary of arriving in Portland. Things are going slow on the house-search front, this being an exceptionally difficult house rental market.
I'm in no great hurry to find a place, except that I'm starting to miss my stuff. I'm getting tired of wearing the same clothes every week, which is mildly ridiculous, because chances are I'd be wearing the clothes I have with me anyway. But not having the choice is beginning to wear, and I miss all the other clothes I have packed.
Things are bad enough that I wore a button-front shirt yesterday for the first time since I moved, and I've worn so many t-shirts and polos that Jay was actually surprised.
And if it gets cold, I'm really screwed, because I absolutely refuse to go buy a new winter coat when I already have multiple perfectly good ones.
So I'm missing my books, and my exercise equipment, and my crock pots, and my clothes.
But what I'm finding most interesting is that I really am doing OK without any of it. Sure, I miss it all, but I'm living just fine without it. It just makes me realize that so much of the stuff I brought with me I probably could have given away and I'd be OK.
It's an interesting thought.
Bill and I talked the other night about how much we are looking forward to getting rid of all our stuff and starting over in a much smaller, much less stuff-intensive environment. As we get older, stuff seems more like a millstone, and less like a pleasure. I think two more years, and then small apartment here we come!!
ReplyDeleteI think it would be good for everyone with a lot of 'stuff' to go live somewhere else for 4-6 weeks with a few suitcases worth of 'stuff'. At the end they would realize what they truly needed in their lives and what they didn't.
ReplyDeleteI'm going to be forced into huge divestment in a couple of years when I move to a single level home. I'm really looking forward to it. I'll probably still have too much 'stuff', but it will easily be half of what I allow to encumber me right now.