Multiplying Wonders.
(or how I always miscalculate)
🌹 It’s crazy the amount of things we can collect over time. Every time we start out with nothing but the clothes on our backs – as a matter of speech – we end up with a fully furnished, almost stocked to the brim, home. Granted, most of it we use on a daily basis, but there’s also the stuff we like to have, just for the joy of it. Add in the things we can’t seem to part from and soon every room is filled.
🌹 Trying to live a life that’s not depending on possessions or rather, how much we own, it’s startling to see this happen time and again. It has 2 sides though. One being sure that we’ll always be provided with whatever we need and the other being the realization we again, got more than we needed. This leads causes that moving around has 2 sides too: we never really worry about the things we need – I mean, first things first: a home is where we all start – but we also have to clear out stuff to make the eventual move easier. It’s kind of double. I’m not a fan of cleaning, but the satisfaction I get from it is gratifying.
🌹 There’s this saying about when your house is in order, your mind will be too and in a way it works for me. Then again, I can easily let things be and go do something fun instead, just because I want to, chaos be hanged. When I read a follow-up email – due to the 16personalities test I’d taken for Know Thyself – and it said, I quote: ‘In many cases, Protagonists may be more interested in simply minimizing distractions in their environment so that they are free to pursue something interesting, as opposed to seeking order for the sake of order’, I had to admit it was spot on. Either way, at least some semblance of order is restored on a regular basis. So the result is the same, even if my hidden motifs might be questionable 🙄
🌹 Apart from a ‘Spring Cleaning’ – does anybody even do that still? – it’s useful to take stock now and then and get rid of everything that’s either not used anymore or has multiplied in an unseemly manner. You know how it goes: You (just moved and) finally got rid of something you had been saving for so long ‘just in case’, which you could really use right now! Somehow again ending up with at least 3 different colors afterwards, which you have to get rid of anew, since it’s ridiculous to own 3. Never happens to you? Oh, well. Among other things, it’s those ‘just-in-case’ stuff we’re saving, that can easily get out of hand. We don’t want to unnecessarily waste stuff, but when do I reach the point I decide it’s time to throw it out, or better yet, give it away? Yeah, it’s not always well timed…
🌹 This weirdly reminds me of a time when we had just moved in our third home. Steve just got started in the whole IT business and while it was a well-paid job – for the first ever time – we still had to buy a lot of new stuff to get comfortable with two little kids. After some time we were properly settled and we received a phone call from one of our friends we hadn’t been talking to for some time. She started apologizing immediately and awkwardly started blurting out her story. In short: She had been planning to move abroad and felt in her heart to gift us a lot of her home furniture and appliances. However, she had been doubting and fearing to call us for so long, so by the time she did decide, we were already provided with much of everything we needed. We ended up with a lot of doubles anyways.
🌹 It was just one of those unexpected circumstances which lead to us having more than we needed. Well, not just circumstances, this IS what we believe: ‘where He guides, He provides’. In a way it is nice to be able to bless other people with our ‘overflow’, pay it forward so to speak. I mean, as far as clothes and shoes go, there is an easy rule I try to stick to: if I haven’t been wearing it for a year, I can do away with it, because it’s not likely I will be wearing it anytime soon. As much as I love my clothes – no use in hiding the truth since I have been talking about it so much at the start – at some point I just need to part ways. It’s OK, since I love a trip to the charity shop, either to get rid of things, or, when the time comes, to get something ‘new’.
🌹 Furniture, well…I still have this silly dream to be able to fill my house with all the things I really love – doesn’t have to be expensive, IKEA would do nicely! – whenever we will find a place where we would stay to grow old 😉. So no, I’m not particularly attached to anything we have at the moment, nor was I in the past. Secondhand has its perks you know. It’s becomes more difficult when talking about things that have a sentimental value and those have also been known to accumulate pretty quickly throughout the years. Having kids might be adding to those treasured memories being materialized in any kind of object and yes, we lost a lot along the way, but we lived. There’s no way we could have kept everything anyways.
🌹 As for practical things, yeah, that can be difficult too. I don’t even want to count the amount of times we had to buy the most common utensils/tools over again. But hey, that’s life for us and though we do have our moments of ‘oh yeah…we had that before’, why linger too long on those things, it’s not making me feel better, so we basically laugh about it. Because it does have its hilarious moments and those become ultimately clear when we end up with said multi-colored collections. So yeah, clean-up. History repeats itself and I could say our life is going in circles. Or rather, in an upward spiral.
🌹 Referring back to the previously mentioned saying about our minds and homes being in accord whether cluttered or not: it’s funny how we need to clean up our insides as well, to be able to keep going on. This last week my head was just ‘too full’ to be able to concentrate on anything. Really annoying, when trying to finish a book and my mind just keeps straying everywhere, without any particular goal. Whenever I reach that point – or when I’m not even able to listen to music anymore – I know I have to take care of the clutter in my head. If I don’t, my emotions will get involved and before I know it, I’ve developed a ‘mood’ and not a happy one.
🌹 I’d love to blame it all on hormones, because life-as-a-female and all that, but although I am pretty sure they do play some part, it’s not something I’d ever hide behind completely. One can only explain so much annoying behavior using the same excuse and stay credible. Also: I don’t really wish to turn into some bat-sh*t crazy woman now I’ve reached that point in life, just sayin’. Still, moods can get the better of me if I allow them to and honestly, some days are easier to cope with than others. Self-pity can be a strong emotion unfortunately and though we all have our days we should just wallow, it never leads to anything constructive for me. Quite the opposite, if I relent to it, I might be out for some serious demolition. Oh How I Wish sometimes.
🌹 When we keep buying/gathering stuff, we can all picture where it will end. In our case, we don’t even have to buy it all, a lot just comes our way somehow, I can only hope it’s not an entirely uncommon concept to you, and however thankful we are, sometimes it just ends up being too much. As regards to my mind – and I have been talking about how we can choose what to think – the above is what can happen if I don’t reign in what’s picked up by my senses, overwhelming my mind. Just as human as y’all are, or am I? 🤐 If I keep adding and adding, my head feels like it’s going to explode and I’m telling you when it comes out, it won’t be pretty.
🌹 We’ve always been very blessed with whatever we NEEDED, which is NOT always the same as what we WANTED, Just Better. And sometimes it took some fierce perseverance to achieve that point of comfort, but we always kept in mind, comfort is a relative concept, if you get my meaning. Our minds can be full of worry about circumstances that need to change for the better in our lives, but worry is not what makes for reaching your goal any sooner, or easier. It doesn’t add anything positive or constructive, it usually breaks down what – little – faith we had in ourselves and the future we envisioned. Extreme worry can lead to anxiety and mental instability, nobody needs that. I wish I could say I never worry, but again, HUMAN. I do fight worry with everything that is within me though, rejecting it is a Real Possibility.
🌹 It’s common for us to be more prone to worry when we’re feeling down and unfortunately it might also work the other way around. I feel worry accumulates faster when my defenses are already shaken. This could mean I’d end up in the other spiral, the one going down. Accumulating things, whether in our real life or in our inner self, can overcrowd the existing space and leaves it tough to live in. Cleaning is a real necessity in all parts of our life. I don’t have to tell you how old/unprocessed pain can slowly destroy our soul and change our view and expectations for the future.
🌹 ‘Too,’ often stands for ‘too much’ as in overkill. Funny word that, kind of says it all. Allowing ourselves to become hoarders is definitely the point where things have gone out of hand. Moving is already a sour subject for me, however exciting it can be, the move itself feels like climbing a mountain to me. Packing up is no fun at all, though it -again – seems the perfect time to thin out our possessions, like weeding out the garden. Sometimes to only make room for new – though the same – clutter in our new space. We humans are a weird lot for sure. This is our 5th year in this apartment and lately I keep wondering where the heck all that stuff came from. Of course I know, but it’s still baffling how we seem to be doing perfectly fine with less one year and still end up with MORE, a lot more, the next.
🌹 So why become a hoarder of thoughts? Allowing my mind to get overwhelmed with the ‘world’s clutter’ – and I’m not saying live like a hermit, because I’ve been there, done that and don’t recommend it 😳 – will throw me in despair for sure. Dramatic? Not for me. I can only overlook my – let’s say – chaotic living room and go for less than that perfect showroom look, when all is well inside me. If that’s not the case, that same chaos will only add to my already distressed state of mind and will make me feel like I’m very close to failing in more ways than one. A neat home however, can be that push to enlighten my inner me, when I need some encouragement. And yes, cleaning can be very therapeutic as most of you might agree on. No thinking, turn the music up and just get the job done. And don’t think I’m a sparkling wonder of some kind, there are limits.
🌹 I’m only slightly afraid we are finally nearing the point where a move is imminent and that’s what this whole thing is about really. Remembering how I refused to buy anything that would make this house feel more like a home the first couple of years, with another move always lurking in the back of my mind, trying desperately to do some damage control. But no, I finally relented and look where it’s gotten us. And for the record: I did not buy everything, I still enjoy to create something nice myself. No but seriously, it will be alright, I just have to keep telling myself that, holding on to my faith. We’re in the process of cutting back while looking ahead and if we’re not yet leaving this place, at least we’re kind of prepared. Uhuh.
🌹 If we can manage this – but who am I kidding – my mind will certainly rejoice in some extra peace, a definite benefit. There is always hope and if all else fails, we can just give everything away and start all over again. (what do you mean taking the easy way out?) I’ll keep on looking at the fun side by challenging ourselves to a fresh start. I can tell you, it never gets old. Because we believe in a God who has set His own multiplying rules, perfected to a T, for the benefit of those who dare to believe and expect it. Add in the fact we love to bless others with our ‘doubles’ and more, we keep the sowing and reaping cycle going. The best spiral to be in, where multiplying wonders happen.
Wishing y’ all a very Sparkling Weekend, with some Multiplying Helping Hands ❤
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