Folks who visit our small house tend to either love it or grimace politely. Big guys grimace. Sometimes they poke their heads in and if I can see that they aren’t into it, I say “Uh, ha! Tour’s over!” to give them an out. For grimacers, it’s more like a cool fort. Women tend to gush and fantasize out loud about not being a slave to a house.
We decided to take the leap when Steve started nursing school and the kids were mostly out. Steve is an EMT, too, so emergency calls of “HURRY! ANOTHER SOMEONE MIGHT DIE” come across the radio a lot, and we kept thinking we wanted to LIVE…so decided to move.
We made a lot of fun memories at our modern Ross Lane house. Comfy as heck, big, a challenge to keep clean, expensive – the pics are great though! Of prom dates and lots of team dinners, and of our proportionately huge dog. It was easy for teens to sneak out at night, too (what?!?), and back in, come to think of it, like the time Jimmy Chaffee didn’t want to sleep on the neighbor kid’s sofa so he came in the side door and slept in our guest room.
But the Big House felt like jail sometimes, except after 75% of our kids moved out taking their friends with them, and Steve left to the mainland for nursing school. At that point it felt like a morgue. Isaac and I bounced around in there, hid out in the master bedroom, ate dinner on the bed and watched TV at night. We kept it staged for showings, like prisoners in a vacation rental. We were pretty sad, honestly, and poor Steve, he’d come home to a decent amount of stress and sorrow because the house WOULD. NOT. SELL.
Exhausted by my big house life, I had to mentally change course. Steve lived happily on the mainland four nights a week in a rented room furnished with a mat and a pillow. How does he do it? My sister had just finished Marie Kondo’s book, “The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up” so I read it and did what it said – got rid of tons of stuff and the stuff that dead loved ones left us. Then the house sold.
The day before closing I sat crying in the garage full of Big House Stuff, praying that God would send a hoarder, and guess what happened? NOT KIDDING, a dude with a huge truck showed up and took everything! Every bit of paint, wire, skis, boxes of spackle, wood – EVERYTHING. And he was so happy! Me – happier! We left GOBS OF NICE STUFF for the buyer, including antiques and Halloween decorations, a BONANZA.
The spiritual burden of random BELONGINGS is immense. Truly, when I buy or get stuff I don’t want that thing, but the feeling that I’ve assigned to it. So when I’d buy a five-pack of spatulas on sale I wanted to feel like I beat the money system, not to get five spatulas. A lot of reflection + Marie Kondo’s method taught me the framework for keeping only the things that actually bring joy, which in turn bring meaning to life and its setting. Now, every last thing we own brings its share of joy, including mundane things like lipgloss (Forever21, the Best!), forks (started to use the good stuff), rugs, art, boots, rakes – everything. I had to give up notions of value (largely perceived), like that of my dead mom’s luncheon plates.
I hope you’ll stay tuned for Part II next week, which will offer the practical parts of living in a small house and a bunch more photos! Love ya, Win
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