It’s amazing how you don’t notice how much stuff you have until you have to pack every last tiny bit of that stuff into a cardboard box.
And then suddenly you realize you are drowning in stuff.
Not just Stuff.
But STUFF.
An endless amount of it.
Somehow, the more you pack, the more you have left.
“It’s just impossible!” I proclaimed to my husband many times during the packing week.“We are just not going to be able to do this. We have too much stuff!
He would calmly remind me, “How do you eat an elephant?”
My answer is always the same; “You don’t!”
Nope, wrong answer.
“One bite at a time.”
The boxes piled up, one at a time, but the closets still didn’t look emptier.
“I’m never going shopping again, we will not be buying anything new for the next decade!” I announced one evening. And I meant it.
Until I found myself on Amazon just 30 minutes later ordering new shoes for one of my kids.
I filled up dozens of garbage bags for trash, things that should’ve been tossed years ago.
Like shoes that a kid hardly wore, puzzles missing pieces that were older than most of my kids. Ripped books that I’d put aside in the garage, hoping they’d fix themselves while I wasn’t looking, because it was too hard to throw out such expensive merchandise.
Clothing that hadn’t fit in a decade or two – and even if they did fit, I would never wear it again.
My engagement party gown…how to toss something so expensive but also so outdated!
I snapped a photo of the gown and sent the picture to my daughter in seminary. “Should I save this for you?” I asked, with the most innocent and sincere emojis I could find. Uh, let’s just say her emojis weren’t as innocent and she politely but firmly declined. I ran out of reasons for keeping it.
It was hard, but I did it. With Hurculean inner strength, I put it in the garbage bag. Granted, it was 20 years later than I should have.
Bags to donate, bags to trash, bags and bags and bags.
I wanted to throw out everything.
My husband reminded me that we still might need some pots and pans in the new house, so I’m better off holding onto them.
I organized as I packed, with the fairytale thought that in the new house – that’s where the magic was going to happen. No clutter, no mess, no piles. Everything would be in its perfect place in my perfect closets. Because the new house was perfect. I loved going to check it out – the big empty rooms, the immaculate empty closets. It was so spacious and free of clutter.
We continued packing.
It’s the last 5% that gets you. Those little piles of odds and ends that you, quite frankly, don’t know what to do with.
I started going through the first bin of random items; a particular light bulb that’s only for certain types of lamps but it’s a good bulb and maybe I have a lamp that needs it … a stand for something that’s a good piece but I don’t know what it’s from, I’ll ask the kids if it belongs to anyone but I definitely don’t want to be guilty of throwing out something that they may need … the container of chargers and plugs that’s been in the garage for a year and no one has needed it but maybe I might … three sharpies that are good but belong in the sharpie box that I packed with the crafts and won’t be opening for a little while but why would I toss good sharpies … a little sweeper thing for something that I don’t remember but it’s in good shape so where should I put it … some notebooks I got on sale that should be with the school supplies but that’s been packed too and I can’t possibly throw out notebooks even though two pages are scribbled on and they were on sale for so cheap … one glove that I know the match is somewhere but not sure where and should I really throw out that one good glove?!
At that point, all rational thought was gone. I was having nightmares about boxes and packing tape. Everything from the piles got shoved into a box and taped shut, even though l know I’ll regret it.
Moving day arrived, and the impossible happened.
It was true about the elephant.
One piece at a time.
Somehow every last bit of content of our home of 13 people is packed in a box. And it is all moved to the new house.
I go to the new house. My spacious, empty and organized perfect house.
Lo and behold, it’s full of STUFF.
ALL MY STUFF!
I wonder where my perfect new house went.
And I think about stuff. How our life is full of stuff.
The only way to have a stuff-free house is if you don’t live in it.
One of my kids once said to me, “Mommy, we should have two houses. One we live in and one we keep clean.”
Wisest words ever.
To be human is to have stuff. But only I can make sure my stuff doesn’t turn into STUFF.
With Pesach on my mind, I’m thinking about going out of Mitzraim. Every year we get to focus on going out of Egypt. What stuff are we packing? What stuff are we leaving behind? What are we doing with those annoying little “piles” that trail behind us, things that may have once had a purpose but have turned into STUFF?
Packing and moving is not for the faint of heart, but suddenly I’m looking at Pesach differently. If we are cleaning but taking the STUFF with us, we are missing the point. Some things just need to be put in the trash.
I opened that box with the three sharpies, lightbulb, the glove and the stand for something.
I took the box and emptied all the contents in my new lineup of trash bags.
I felt liberated and free.
Don’t take the STUFF you don’t need, be it emotional, physical, mental or any other, into another year of Pesach.
Little Yellow Notepad 