An Adventure In Simple Living

Many years ago, in my life with “Mr. X.,” a Vietnamese family came to visit our home. By the standards in Southlake, Texas, which was filled with “McMansions,” our house was modest. In fact, we joked that we lived in “the slums of Southlake.”

Our house was on almost an acre with four bedrooms (one was an office), and two bathrooms. However, we had two active teenagers, so the place always felt as if it was busting at the seams. Mr. X and I pined for a bigger house, so we would have room to spread out.

Our Vietnamese visitors stepped in the door, and their mouths dropped to the floor. As they toured our home, they shook their heads in wonder, “So much room,” the gasped “for so few people!”

Here was an eye-opener for me. I knew that early pioneers in America lived in one room houses, but I was willfully oblivious to the fact that in other cultures people lived quite happily in small spaces. I had grown up with the idea that “bigger is better.” I wanted to “keep up with the Joneses.”

Now, I can appreciate the words of Quentin Crisp (an English writer, actor, and raconteur). He said,

“Keeping up with the Joneses was a full-time job with my mother and father. It was not until many years later when I lived alone that I realized how much cheaper it was to drag the Joneses down to my level.”

These days, my husband Eric and I live in a much bigger house than I had all those years ago. Soon, our youngest child heads off to college, and it will be just the two of us. So much
room
for so
few people, indeed!

We spend our “free time” cleaning, repairing, and maintaining. There is a huge lawn to mow and trees that fill the yard with leaves each fall. The work seems never ending! We are not the masters of our domain – it masters us! The result is that we feel stressed about this place most of the time.

I can finally wrap my head around the idea that we don’t need a house this size. In fact, we no longer want it. We have decided to work our way toward downsizing. We want to simplify our lives so that we can spend our free time doing things we enjoy. Our path to simple, stress-free living has some roadblocks, though. We have been packrats for years! Before we can move to that smaller dream home, we have to de-clutter.

It’s not going to happen overnight. We didn’t acquire all of these collections in a few days, and we won’t be able to successfully clean it out in a few days.

Over the next year, we will be sifting through the flotsam and jetsam of our lives, distilling our possessions to only the things we love the best. We are both scared to death about the process. I’ll be chronicling here the things we learn along the way.

Forgive me if I occasionally have to stop and breathe into a paper bag!

This journey began on a separate blog (you can click here to read About Out Of Chaos), but that wasn’t really simplifying was it? I moved all of the posts to This Eclectic Life under the category Out Of Chaos. I’ll be adding more from time to time. I hope you join me.

Other posts you might enjoy:

1. Simple Recipes? A “Meme” Full of Them
2. Not So Excellent Adventure
3. Simple Tasks Aren’t Always Easy
4. As Simple As Black and White
5. An Adventure in Wonderland at Rose Costumes

Tagged as: simplified life