Every Last Bit

Back in the Spring of 2005, our family began preparations to move from Phoenix to Leiden. In hopes that the experience would be longer than the one-year academic course my husband would be attending, we divested ourselves of most of our possessions. We held garage sales and Internet sales (I sold my car by email). We donated goods to charity and gave goods to friends. When August, and our imminent departure, rolled around, we had reduced our mass to virtually what fit inside our 10 suitcases plus carry-ons. That we left a corner of our Arizona house stuffed with a few remaining--too precious-to-toss--items didn't deter us from believing that we had truly simplified. It was liberating to imagine that everything we needed or wanted could be carried with us (albeit with a luggage carrier).

The first year in The Netherlands we lived in the home of a Leiden University professor who was on sabbatical with his family in the U.S. It was an ideal living arrangement for us as they had left everything of household necessity behind and available to us. From dishes to bicycles we were covered and found ourselves wanting and needing nothing.

With the mentality following that we would be repacking for a possible return flight to the USA after that first year, we kept our accumulation in check.

Somewhat.

I began to be suspicious of our collective ability to pull off the simple life when we moved from Leiden into our friend's home (we would house sit for the summer) in July 2006. That it took more than one van load to haul our things to her house was mildly disconcerting. Still, all in all, I figured we were still maintaining that idyllic reduced-possessions lifestyle I so wanted to keep.
From that moment onward, that hope in keeping it simple has been a lost dream. Part of it is understandable, really. When we moved to The Hague last summer it was into a home without furnishings. I adjusted my thinking to include the notion that it would be all right to once again own furniture. Surely, I could make my home comfortable without overdoing it in the accumulation department.

However, it just didn't stop there.

Admittedly, once our placement here in this country moved from temporary to exit-at-an-indefinite-date I allowed myself to think bigger and more permanent. We bought stuff. Stuff we needed sure. And stuff we wanted, most definitely. Hell, I even bought more shoes. And a computer. A file cabinet. A television.

And other stuff.

Trust me now when I tell you, my belongings no longer fit into 10 suitcases plus carry-ons.

Here then is the source of this diatribe. I spent the better part of my Sunday morning cleaning out my closet--removing summer gear and replacing it with heavy winter sweaters and long sleeved apparel. I also took the opportunity to throw out (meaning: ready for donation to charity) old clothes which I no longer wear for a variety of reasons. I filled 3 large plastic bin sacks full.

And yet?

Yet my closet is full. More things than I can possibly wear, more than I can definitively declare that I NEED.

And as I sit here at my brand new computer with my feet clad in my (just purchased yesterday) fuzzy pink slippers, I am suddenly loathe to consider just how I would live without it.

All of it.