midwest thunderstorm

1072 stairs later

.. I'm in the new apartment.

Holy shit.

There's something really lovely about living with many other people. We have a big, beautiful (if ghetto-fabulous) apartment, full of lovely things. Particularly lovely KITCHEN things. An incredible CD collection between the 5 of us. Too many futons to count. A pool table. And the most wonderful thing aobut the whole situation is that I don't have to OWN all of these things. There's some joy in benefitting from a community's resources without having to bear the burden of them being all your own.

The move has made me think about things. We have a two floor apartment, with five people living in it. Between the five of us, we probably have less stuff than most families of four. Meaning, a family with only 2 viable consumers in it. So, its not surprising then, that there is a lack of adventure, spontanaeity, dare I say MOXY, in the life of many settled families. How does one cultivate that? Certainly, by necessity, upon the arrival of children in a family, certain risks are no longer calculated. One cannot pick up and leave at a moment's notice for an individual soul-search around the country in a dilapidated camper van. But I also feel like so many families find themselves strangulated by their perception of stability, risk-taking, and what that means in the light of their children. And I truly feel that somehow, that feeling of being roped into one's life, with no capacity for change, is directly proportional to the amount of one's stuff.

I remember buying a king-size mattress off of craigslist 2 years ago. Sleeping in it was like owning bed-acreage. I feel as though I should have been paying property taxes. So, that was nice. But owning it made my head immediately avoid the topic of moving. Getting it up the 2 flights of stairs to my first apartment was ridiculous; imagine getting it down. When we finally got rid of it, 8 months later, I could feel a palpable weight lift from my shoulders, knowing that I no longer owned such a commitment item. I felt already more mobile. More transferable.

Stuff weighing us down, quite literally, to where we are. Not just because we want it (though for some, that's the crux of the matter), but because it is ours. Because we have something of ourselves wrapped up in this stuff while we own it, and when we let it go, sell it, trash it, leave it behind, we get that part back. But the difficulty is in the letting go; until we do so, its so hard to imagine not having it. A fear of not regaining the part of ourselves we've wrapped up in that piece of furniture.

I know that as I settle down this year, I will acquire more things. And when I leave, I will get rid of old ones. But how my heart yearns for the days when I only carried a backpack, with all that I needed to live, carrying me across worlds, and I still had too many things, and I still wanted more and I still had room for all that I was collecting.

Posted by meganorwig at September 3, 2006 09:56 AM | TrackBack