Day 199

We expand to fit the space available to us.  This is a truth I know.  I have titled it THE ENLARGEMENT PRINCIPLE.  If any of you are physicists out there, you have my permission to launch a full up scientific study.  We can split the Nobel Prize.

I give you the example of the purse, backpack, messenger bag or murse– Please insert your own “carryall” term here.

My summer bag is diminutive and is always crammed full of necessary items. It has to be—it’s small.  I have been known to get my hand stuck in the tight space between my wallet and cell phone while searching for my keys. (OK, not really, but you get the point).

Much like the rest of my winter wardrobe, my cold weather purse is much larger.  So for a day or two after the switch each year, I have a veritable cavernous pocketbook.  It makes me feel orderly and slightly smug.  Although, somehow, I will still often be searching for my keys frantically with my left hand, only to discover I am holding them in my right.

Then a few days will pass and I will realize that my supersized purse is suddenly quite full.  See, THE ENLARGEMENT PRINCIPLE in action, or selective amnesia, because I sure as hell don’t remember loading up those additional items.

I find the same principle to be true with homes, cars, clothing and dinner plates.  Think about moving into a new (often larger) home.  At first, you might have a couple empty or sparsely furnished rooms, then a fortnight* passes and suddenly you are tripping over piles of excess stuff.

And what adult doesn’t fill their plate, and then clean it (just like mama said) regardless of diameter?  Anyway, you see the pattern.

I am finding that this year, I have to practice a sort of active resistance to THE ENLARGEMENT PRINCIPLE.

The bottom line is, I go to lots of thrift stores and garage sales.  I do this primarily to find the few things on my list that I really do need like printer ink and a pencil sharpener.  The danger is that I also spy many things I want and HAVE THE SPACE FOR, like say…a Jack Lalanne Juicer, which I bought and a table saw, which I didn’t buy.

I guess you win some and you lose when tangling with THE ENLARGEMENT PRINCIPAL.  But, I think there is something to be said for living in and taking up smaller spaces.  I just don’t have any practical knowledge of it—yet.

Instructions included

*I don’t even know what a fortnight is…I just thought it sort of sounded like the right about of time.  I would probably have to fact check that before submitting this groundbreaking article to the scientific journals…but not if I was going to use it in a presidential debate.