elly,
another birthday apart. i hope you are having a fabulous time. it seems very very unfair that a mom wouldn't get to be with her child on their birthday but i am doing my best to trust that it will all work together.
we only had one birthday together, the precious one where i met you and laid eyes on you for the very first time. i miss you so much.
i gave away most of your baby things, i wanted them to go to little babies who could fill them out now. i tried so hard to remind myself of you after you left elly, tokens and gifts and material things... but the reality is, no material object comes close to touching that loss. they are well meaning- but misguided.
my longing for you is different, i never catch myself wondering where your stuff is. but when we are all in the car and my heart skips a beat because i feel like we left something, that's when i feel the pang for you. the knowledge that something (someone) is missing.
i hope to spread some kindness today, i hope your birthday kicks me into being generous instead of a self-pity party. i hope to show extra love to Addy, Lane and Nyah in honor of you.
i hope you experience kindness too, i hope my mom or another maternal person wraps you in a great big hug today until i can get to do it myself. i hope you get to see a rainbow or fresh dew on flowers and feel breezes in your hair.
I love you Ellery Ann,
I will choose hope,
Love,
your mom
less
Friday, March 1, 2019
2019 is my year of less.
of less noise, distractions, and scheduling conflicts. less fights with my kids, less toys to step on, less clutter, less hurt, less less less.
the ironic thing is, in getting less- i have more. more time with my kids when i'm not worried about my things, more time for myself after the kids go to bed. i've spent the better part of the last two-three months devouring books on minimalism. i have given away hundreds of pounds of possessions. an extra comforter we don't need, books i haven't read in years, toys that aren't played with.
i've dumped out drawers and donated clothes, pulled out almost every item and realized the weight of the responsibility of bringing an item into my house.
this is not ground breaking information but it is a groundbreaking movement in my life. i am not the first one to realize the complete overwhelm of the american lifestyle that we work endlessly to achieve. the feeling of "if we had a little bit more..."
if we had more money we could finally get out of debt
if we had more time we could finally spend some time with our kids
if we had more more more
i think grief is such an interesting place to approach minimalism from because possessions can mean so much when you go through grief. you get these things because green was their favorite color, or elephants remind you of them.
it's been in giving my items away though that i have felt truly free. Marie Kondo said one of the most freeing things in her book The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up
essentially
it is not the memories that we need to treasure but who we have become because of those experiences that we need to embrace.
It was so freeing to me. Freeing to let go of my past because I am no longer in it. Free to let go of duplicates and trust that when the time comes I can find a replacement. Free to let go, let go, let go. Every closet in our house has extra room in it right now. Lane's room is the last to be fully decluttered as we are in the process of adding shelves to his closet. My house takes ten minutes to get picked up at night. I know where most of our stuff is (the garage is still a little bit of a mess and we still have some work to do overall).
There is room, room in our house for people to walk in and be themselves, for messes to get made because the surfaces are clear, for art projects that before had pieces scattered everywhere.
I have gotten more of what matters by giving up what didn't.
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