Some Musings over Three Cheese Graters

I think I need to purge. Mentally, I mean. My brain is so full of stuff, I keep making silly blunders and embarrassing myself.

Purging is good. Speaking of which, we’ve really started kicking the process of purging our belongings into full gear. It’s shocking how many things you really don’t need. I don’t consider myself a packrat – our crawl space in the basement is 75% empty. But I’m still filling bags and boxes with things to get rid of every day.

People think that the hardest part of purging is letting go of things. I can see that with some things, but right now I’m just annoyed that we’ve created an existence that is filled with so much stuff. It’s not bad stuff. Some of it’s very useful stuff. But it’s annoying that we have so many things we don’t (or rarely) use.

I’m annoyed with the enormous bin of single socks that we’ve collected over the years. I’m annoyed with the boxes of random screws and nails in the garage. I’m annoyed with our closet full of games we rarely play. I’m annoyed that we have three different cheese graters.

I suppose it’s because we’re in a whole different mindset preparing for this trip. Having three cheese graters has not bothered me before now because we have room for them. Now that we’re calculating storage space, three cheese graters seems ridiculous.

And even if we do have room for them, they’re still extraneous. They’re still taking up space that they don’t need to take up. I still have to push them out of the way to get to other things in the cabinet. There’s no reason to keep them.

I’m finding a lot of things like that in the house.

Which leads me to wonder . . . how many things in other areas of our lives are taking up extraneous space? How many things – not just material things, but thoughts, feelings, habits, beliefs – do we hold onto for no good reason? What can we purge from our emotional and spiritual lives that are getting in the way of the things we really need?

It’s an interesting notion. Even something useful or something of value can weigh us down if it’s not needed. Not that we should keep only what’s necessary, but shouldn’t we be very selective with what else we hold onto? Cluttering up our brains and hearts and souls with extraneous “stuff” is just as senseless as keeping three cheese graters, no?

I’m going to meditate on this a bit more. I feel like this thought hasn’t fully cooked yet.

Speaking of purging and meditating and letting go of stuff and cooking, the Baha’i Fast starts on Saturday. Nineteen days of no water or food between sunrise and sunset. Spiritual food only. 🙂 One of my favorite times of the year, truly.

During those 19 days, I’m planning to write about our family’s process of detachment from our life here – from our stuff, from our lovely prairie home, from our lifestyle. This is the hard part, the flipside of the exciting adventure coin. I hope you’ll join me. It’s going to be an interesting month.

🙂 Annie

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