As our Simple Year ends, I’ve been thinking about the role that stuff has played, and continues to play, in our lives. And what I’ve learned from this past year. And I’ve tried to summarize it all below along with some insights we’ve learned along the way. I still don’t think I’ve gotten the words just right, but sometimes you’ve got to let it go and click publish.

But First, Some Introspection

As I’ve mentioned before, Stephen and I started out with very little. Two broke early twenty-somethings who were, in the immortal words of Bon Jovi, livin’ on a prayer. We worked really hard to “make something of ourselves” and to “live the American dream.” Over the years, we worked exceedingly hard in college and graduate school, and dedicated insane amounts of time and energy to our careers. And as a result we were upwardly mobile.

We traded our time for increasing amounts of money. And that money bought us our first single family home in an upscale neighborhood in North Dallas, which we eventually traded for an even bigger home in the same area. Because we now had two kids and “needed the space.”

And we had these two amazing, beautiful, smart, talented, funny children who we wanted to raise to value education.  Just like our parents raised us. We knew that our local public schools weren’t so hot, so we decided to send them to private school. We valued the fact that the school we chose was faith-based, required uniforms and had very small class sizes. Which, I acknowledge, is an insane luxury.  One that Stephen and I worked hard and sacrificed a lot of wants to be able to provide.

But over this past year I’ve been hyper-observant about our lives. About our choices. Things I’d never thought about before were at the top of my mind this year. You know what comes with private school and its corresponding crazy expensive tuition? Wealthy parents. Ones who can and do provide their children with everything they need and most everything they want.  Which is fine, because they worked hard to be able to do so. And it’s a totally free country and I make zero judgments about them or their choices, because let’s be real — we’ve done the same. But then, when you wake up and pay attention, you start to bump up against the issue of kids who don’t know anything outside of what we call “Life in the Bubble.”

And Life in the Bubble comes with name brand clothes, a fascination with labels, international travel, weekend trips to NY or California or Washington, the latest in technology, and lavish birthday parties. And play dates at country clubs and the Four Seasons.  And you start to forget what normal or average really is. Because you’re surrounded by exceedingly above average.  And you know what? All of these people are kind, compassionate, giving and funny. And their children are bright, loving, well mannered and charming. I adore my children’s friends and I love our community. I am blessed with amazing friends and so are my kids.

But when you are trying to halt the breaks on the consumption train a little bit, you find yourself in this spot where you have competing interests: you want to provide your kids with the opportunities available to them, but on the other hand you want them to realize that, oh my gosh, you are so fortunate. Most people don’t live like this. 

Just to illustrate this a little bit, over Easter we took a trip to visit family in San Antonio. We stayed at my brother’s house and the adults got the beds and the kids slept on blankets and sleeping bags on the floor. This was standard operating procedure when I was growing up and I didn’t think anything of it. Until The Boy asked me why the kids slept on the floor. “I don’t get it, Mom. Why do the adults get the beds?”  And I realized that they’ve never had to sleep on the floor. Ever. That alternative is not even in the realm of their comprehension. Insert sounds of tires screeching. Back up. And welcome to the Bubble.

So now we are left considering how to balance providing our kids with the best educational and life opportunities we can and making sure they don’t fall prey to making value judgments of people or places based on money and labels. How do we teach them the value of a dollar and the importance of hard work? And to not take anything for granted? And to be thankful for good health and a roof over your head and an abundance of food to eat?  And to realize that true joy doesn’t come from stuff — it comes from your relationships and sharing experiences with those you love? I suppose that will be our family’s focus for the upcoming year.

The whole process this past year of scrutinizing at our stuff, sorting everything in our home into keep, donate, recycle, and focusing on what is most important, has sunk in. Before we acquire something, we need to make sure it is something we need or will use regularly and enjoy. And the peace that comes from a house not overrun by stuff is way better than having more stuff.

The journey we’ve been on this past year has definitely been challenging. I’ve cried in frustration and I’ve questioned my sanity for signing up to do it in the first place. There were times I’ve wanted to crawl into bed and never come out. I’ve been overwhelmed. I’ve been relieved. I’ve been enlightened. But, at the end of the day, I’m glad that we did it. Even though our official Simple Year is over, our work is not.

 

Lessons We’ve Learned This Year

At any rate, I thought I’d share a few things we’ve learned this year:

• A car is just a car. Even though I have noticed a very distinct difference in the way other people drive around a Lexus vs. a Prius – for real, I asked Stephen if he noticed it or if I was just paranoid. He confirmed what I’d been seeing. And a Prius definitely gets way better gas mileage. It’s not a sleek driving machine, but it gets us where we need to go with a minimal environmental and budgetary impact. Not a bad trade, really.

 

• With a little effort each day, you can accomplish a lot. We started with making the easiest decisions first. We got rid of items we had multiples of.  We worked our way through it all, one bucket, one drawer, one shelf at a time. Be prepared to hit many walls and have to overcome fatigue. It will happen.

 

• Getting on Charity Donation Mailing Lists forces you to re-home items you don’t need. When you automate the arrival of a truck for pick-up, you make sure there’s something out there for them to pick up. Also, finding charitable organizations that will send a truck to your home at a specific date and time ensures that large items like furniture leave your home.

 

• If you want to invest the extra time, you can sell things on Craigslist or Ebay or find someone who will cart it away if you are willing to give it away via Freecycle.

 

• Identifying places that will recycle your unwanted goods is a Godsend. Electronics, textiles, toys, books, etc. It’s all good.

 

• Or dream up ways to repurpose what you have. Like your wedding dress, for example.

 

• Being irresponsible in the accumulation of stuff ensures that you have an even bigger headache when you decide to responsibly discard your stuff.  The silver lining, though, is that you think a lot harder about bringing new things into your home. We’ve adopted a 1-in-2-out rule.

 

• You need a lot less than you think you do. When we started this whole thing, I knew we had way too much stuff, but I didn’t realize how little we actually needed. We still have more stuff than necessary. And we’re still working on getting rid of what we don’t need. Which leads me to the next point.

 

• Making big changes in your life is a process. It won’t happen overnight. Sometimes you’ll think you’ve lost your mind and question yourself. But then you get over it and keep on going. Our process is still ongoing. We’ve eliminated stuff, focused on health, relationships, and time priorities. And we’re happier for it.

 

• Don’t let other peoples’ negative comments make you doubt yourself.  Especially if you are blogging about your journey on the internet, people will make comments. Some of them won’t be kind. Don’t let comments that hurt your feelings, be they from people you know or people you don’t, stop you. If you feel strongly that you are making positive changes for you and your family, it doesn’t really matter what they think. It only matters what you and your family think is best for you. Just make up a name for them and then say to yourself, “Judgy McJudgypants doesn’t know what they’re talking about.” And then move on.

 

• Life events can threaten to derail your progress. Allow yourself a set amount of time to recover, grieve or whatever. Then keep going. In other words, when life knocks you down, pick yourself up, dust yourself off, and start again. It doesn’t mean you shouldn’t start at all or give up.

 

• Observe gratitude daily. In all things large and small.

Thank You!

I also want to mention how grateful I am to the community of readers of The Simple Year. You all have offered so much encouragement along the way and you’ve shared some really cool ideas in the comments. And I’m grateful for the negative comments, too. Because they just added more fuel to my fire, so thank you. Thank you all of you. It’s been an insane, crazy, amazing ride that I will never forget.

And, a huge thank you to Kerry. Thank you for giving me this opportunity. Thank you for trusting your blog to me this past year. Thank you for your support. I’m so grateful to have “met” you. Hopefully we can spend some time, in real life, and chat over a glass of wine.

Simple Year 3

Tomorrow I will introduce The Simple Year 3 blogger and her project for The Simple Year 3. Woo-hoo!