Foxy Writer Chick

One of Seinfeld’s shticks is on the subject of getting rid of stuff so you can acquire more stuff. It’s a perpetual dance, isn’t it?

We buy. We bring stuff home. We realize we have ten pounds of crap in a two-pound bag and we have to purge to make room for our newest acquisitions.

George Carlin also addressed the eternal struggle in his observations about “stuff.” He talked about bringing home new stuff and, upon realizing there’s not enough room for it all, we ask others to “move their shit” so we have a place for all our “stuff.”

Shit vs. Stuff. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder even with regard to our material possessions.

Ever look at something taking up space in your place and wonder, “What possessed me to buy that?

Kind of like looking back on one’s rogue’s gallery of dating, eh? Him? I went out with him? Yeah, no surprise Shakespeare once said, “Love is merely madness.” 

Had the bard lived today, he might have looked at the crap overflowing in our homes and thought the same about twenty-first century commercialism and consumerism.

Madness, indeed. #firstworldproblems.

The need to buy has funded an entire industry of “Self-Storage.” Whoever came up with this concept hit on a cash-cow. And closet-hoarders rejoiced. “I can buy space. For my shit. So I can buy more stuff.”

Because these days many of us have so much stuff, we have to rent places to store our shit.

One of my friends told me she figures she’s spent $10,000 on mini-storage to date. Maybe it would have been more savvy to get rid of all that stuff and spend the same amount on, say, a car, or toward the down payment on a house–or here’s a thought: SAVINGS?

Yeah, not as much fun as a vintage Nintendo console with a slew of game cartridges or a collection of Revenge of the Nerds memorabilia…

But you know what? Nothing feels as good as clean except maybe organized and streamlined.

So after holing up in my current house for thirteen years–the longest I’ve ever lived in one place–I’ve decided that it’s time for a purge. Shit’s got to go.

Full disclosure: my purging jag coincides with a newly emptying nest. One son moved out. One’s halfway across the country at college. One’s actively looking for a new place.

But in hindsight, I wish I’d done this sooner.

Because I’m feeling like a new, much lighter woman. Sorry Jerry Seinfeld…I’m not going to buy more stuff. Well, not too much anyway. Maybe a just a bike. And a kayak. And maybe even a paddle board. But all that belongs in the garage anyway. So that’s okay.

When George Carlin said, “A house is just a pile of stuff with a cover on it” he wasn’t talking about the garage was he?

Seriously, sporting equipment to use outdoors might be an exception to the shit vs. stuff debate. After all, it enhances one’s health. And health brings happiness. No gym membership required.

And books…because…well, books.

But seriously, all the extraneous stuff needs to go. It’s just weighing us down. Some of us are drowning it it.

Time to crawl out from beneath weight of want.

From now on, I’m traveling light.

See, the older I get, the more important time becomes. And time is better than shit any day.

Thanks for stopping by!

xoxo,

Susan J. Anderson

Foxy Writer Chick

(and George Carlin & Jerry Seinfeld fangirl)