Retaking the Initiative

So the move is completed.  The house is somewhat unpacked, at least unpacked to the point that we can move around and begin to reconsider the placement of everything we have – and why we have it.

Part of the outcome of the move is that everything we have is now under one roof – ours.  No more storage of items in the houses of others or in small outbuilding.  Everything we own now exists within the four rectangular walls that we call home.

Another outcome of the move has been the “downsizing” (I use the term loosely) in the size of our  house – certainly in square footage but more relevantly in the number of rooms and closets that we have.  Suddenly we have less places to organize and keep all of the items that we own, that we have dragged with ourselves from place to place convincing ourselves that these are critical things we have to keep.

The move has allowed us to retake the initiative of remaking and retooling our lives.

Retooling.  That sounds like such a big word, does it not?  A sort of massive makeover involving the destruction of large pieces of equipment, the tearing down of walls and rebuilding of even larger walls, and the appropriation of even more complex pieces of equipment.  The result sounds like it should be the outcome of an industrial project, with gleaming steel and robotics ready for action.

The reality of our retooling is much less exciting.

Our retooling has much more to do with a reconsideration of all that we have brought with us – looking at it, considering it, and then determining if it is something which has value in our lives as we move forward.

We have accumulated a great amount of the stuff over the years – just this week we finally sold the last LPs what we had (the actual player is two years gone at this point).  Some of it was sentimental, some of it was what I thought would matter (Three years of Shepherd’s Conferences notes: Gone.  What did I think I would do with them?), some of it is for projects that have no meaning in my life right now.  It is a propitious time to reconsider what it is and why we still need it.

We will still have plenty of items to keep of course – my book collection (the bane of my moving experience) still lacks the bookshelves for permanent display – and the handmade items of Na Clann are safely tucked away.  Even after the consideration and removal, we will still have plenty of “stuff” to fill our lives.

But hopefully after this retooling, we will have “stuff” that has actual purpose and meaning to where we currently are in our lives, what we hope do, and ultimately what we hope to create as an outcome of our lives.