Stuff

When did we start acquiring so much stuff?

I am sitting in my house, two sweet babes tucked away for the night, and I'm just surrounded by so much stuff.

And not like a hoarders amount of stuff piled around me, but just inside of our house is so much stuff. Copious amounts of furniture, toys, clothes, 3 different coffee makers, receipts from the last 7 years, photo albums from when I was in middle school, more books than a small library, enough DVDs to stock a rental store, Christmas decorations, bins of outgrown clothes, and bins of precious stuff that will never have a proper home. We have cupboards full of dishes we rarely use, if ever. The cupboards under our sinks are all full to their brink, but I can't remember the last time I took something out from under one other than for some band-aids.

And the crazy thing is, if you want to play the comparing game, well, then, comparatively we don't have that much stuff at all. We have two small closets and that is all we can store away for a rainy day. We don't have much compared to some, but then we have copious amounts compared to others.

But when did this happen?

As a society, I mean.

There was a time this was not the norm.

Heck, people lived in tiny wood cabins smaller than my downstairs. And everything fit. They fit.

Just the very thought of the 4 of us in that small of a space baffles me. How could we do it? And we are only four people. More people than that could comfortably live in a small space 200+ years ago.

And people had like three outfits and they were happy.

Kids had maybe two or three toys and books were sparse. Coffee makers didn't exist and you only had dishes that could be used habitually and with purpose.

But now. Holy cow, now.

I know it's a different time and place. I wouldn't want to live 200 years ago. We've come a long ways in a lot of really positive ways.

But the stuff.

I really think I am the only person in the world who truly gets stressed out by stuff.

And I add to the problem. So it's not like I'm blameless. I buy games and books and shoes and cute clothes for the kids. I buy Christmas decorations and interesting muffin pans and cookie cutters.

Though most days I want to throw everything out.

Seriously.

I tell J that all the time. I just want to throw everything out and not look back.

We can all keep like 2 weeks of clothes and 5 books and a few toys for the kids.

Non-essential dishes, good-bye.

We can figure out one way to collectively drink coffee. We don't each need out own machine.

Receipts from seven years ago? That might be ridiculous.

The pile of extra blankets just in case people visit us can really go. We've been here five years. No one is coming.

Wait.

I think I said we'd just keep 5 books a second ago.

Bahahaha!

Yeah, who in their right mind could just choose 5 books? I thought I was doing awesome by cutting them down to fit onto two shelves. That was hard! And those were just my books, not counting the kids'.

Though seriously. If I could somehow purge like everything I own, I would.

I can't.

J would die.

I'm not even sure I have the will power.

And we'd likely just acquire it all back anyway.

I mean, I said I wouldn't buy any books during lent.

That lasted all of two weeks.

Ah, alas.

Their were a lot of cons living 200+ years ago.

But at least there wasn't so much stuff.