Creating Space

As a busy mom, or as any busy person on this planet, I excel at filling up my life. While my family subscribes to the "less is more" philosophy of planning, we find that our schedules are full of playdates, classes, errands and tutoring. We think that we don't spend a lot on non-essentials, yet our home is bursting with toys, books, clothes... things that no longer fit on shelves or in closets.

This summer I took a few months off from work and focused on creating space. What do I mean by that? I mean cleaning out the clutter. The physical clutter in our homes, and the emotional clutter that makes it harder for me to know what I want.

It all started with our wish to add some rooms onto our home. We live in a lovely 55-year old, 1700 square foot home. For most of America, our square footage does not even measure up to a cottage! Whenever I read about cottages in Martha Stewart or This Old House, I have to laugh. Their 2500 square foot summer cottage is 50% larger than my home! I was certain that my clutter resulted from being square-footage challenged! If only I had a larger home, then I would have enough space and be happy...!

At some point, I realized that we are not going to be able to afford a larger home anytime soon. We either have to sell our home and move somewhere less expensive, or we need to fit into our 1700 square foot home. We opted for the latter.

So, I began to make space. Literally. I started to get rid of things in our home. The non-fitting clothes were easy. They went to The Ecumenical Hunger Project along with outgrown carseats, strollers, and backpacks. Then the difficulty began. I needed to rid our home of the next layer of unneeded items, but it was not so easy. I felt like there were items that were not needed by people but still should not be thrown away. That is when I discovered Freecycle. Once I joined Freecycle, I began posting items we no longer needed but might be useful to others. Free fish Pinata. Free painting supplies. Free scrapbooks. The way it works is that you post your free items and any interested party will respond. I then tell them where and how to pick up the item, and it is gone! Soon we had a parade of people driving up to our house to claim our unneeded items. Our space hogs were becoming other people's prizes. I was thrilled. I made a promise to offer at least two thing/day on Freecycle. By the end of the week, our garage started to look more manageable, and I felt good that we had given so much to so many people. And I had a good time!

The next layer of items were those which still had, in my mind, perceived value. Like the Andrew Lloyd Weber: Now & Forever CD set I got as a Christmas present. I wanted to listen to it but somehow never did. I could not cast it out as a freebie. That seemed to discount the love that came with it as a gift. Those items I sold for nominal amounts on the Palo Alto Menlo Park Parents's Club Marketplace. As one of 1400 members, I could post items for sale to other club members. I sold the CD set as well as a number of other items I was still attached to.

At the end of this period of making space I was able to see what I really wanted to do with my life. I saw that it was time for me to have fewer conflicting commitments. Basically, I break my life down into three main buckets: being a great mom, making a living, and "saving the world." Since being a great mom, in my dictionary, requires time, I was unable to do it all. So I decided to integrate the making a living and "saving the world" into one bucket. And that's what I'm doing now. Looking for a job that has it all.

I love the idea of cleaning and making space. These actions create that "blank canvas" to be painted with colors of my passions and commitments, not leftover "shoulds" that filled my home with clutter. And in the world of connectedness through social media, Freecycle wins the prize of turning one woman's clutter into another woman's treasure.