“Minimalism isn’t about bare walls and empty shelves – it’s about a full heart that comes from recognizing and appreciating what you already have.” – Melissa Willis
Today is a snow day in Indiana. I love that snow days allow me to slow down and take time to “bask in laziness”. I’m also thankful for a job that allows me that luxury – I know many who must fight the weather to get to jobs that don’t stop with the snow.
Unlike many who loathe the snow this time of year, I savor it and soak it in. I took some time late this morning to take a walk through the property we live on and snap pictures of all the beauty surrounding us. This is the first winter snow walk I’ve had since I began my minimalist journey 9 months ago – as I looked back on our home and took a picture of it through the blankets of snow I was overcome with an incredible and overwhelming sense of gratefulness and gratitude for the opportunity to live in this amazing home and on this amazing property. It was an incredibly warm feeling as I stood out in the cold – but this wasn’t always case.
A job change almost 5 years ago now, forced my husband and I to sell our home and relocate. Our intent was to purchase another home, but with the downturn in the housing market we weren’t able to rebuy. I remember how disappointed I was – owning a home was part of fulfilling the “American dream” – you’d “arrived” if you owned your own home. Now we had left that dream behind and had to rent again – it seemed like a slap in the face. I tried not to fixate on what felt like a step backwards – but the reality was I didn’t want to rent, I wanted to won our own home – that’s how I thought things were supposed to be. I wasted many hours worrying and thinking about “what if” or “if only”. I had a list in my head of things that “weren’t right” about our new living space – it didn’t have the large teaching space I left behind, the rooms were too small, the green carpet was ugly, the basement was unfinished, the closets were too small, the wallpaper was dated – you get the idea. In my quest for more, for better, for perfection, I failed to appreciate all the wonderful things about our home – the unfinished basement provided storage and a laundry room, 3 bedrooms allowed me to have a teaching space (albeit smaller), there was clean running water, a furnace and fireplace to keep us warm in the winter and AC to keep us cool in the summer, and breathtaking views of the property from our “wall of windows”. For years I missed the real magnitude of all this wonderfulness by focusing on how I thought things “should be”, instead of accepting and appreciating things as they were.
Interestingly, it used to be my dream to live in a cozy log cabin in the mountains – and suddenly here was this cozy, log cabin style home in the woods available for us. Sadly, my pursuit of bigger, better and more failed to allow me to see that the fruition of this dream had fallen right in my lap. My dream was all around me, just disguised in a bit of quirkiness on some property in a state I surely never dreamed of living in. I’m glad that the past several months of clearing away the clutter has opened my eyes and helped me recognize that I’m smack in the middle of living my dream – in an imperfect, cozy, quirky home in the woods with ugly green carpet and dated wallpaper. I couldn’t be happier or more content.
Are you in the middle of living your dream? Are your dreams covered in the clutter of overstuffed closets, drawers, basements and garages? Wherever you are today, take a moment and look around you – what can you appreciate, what can you feel grateful for? If you feel the pursuit of a more “perfect” life or a life of how you think things “should be” is preventing you from appreciating all that’s right in front of you – I encourage to clear out those overstuffed spaces – you might be surprised by what amazing things are revealed underneath.