It’s true. In the past two weeks, I’ve started living in a larger house than I used to. And I don’t even have to bother dealing with movers or sending out change-of-address cards or deciding where to put the furniture in differently shaped rooms.
No contractors or exhausting, frustrating DIY projects, either – we’re not building an addition. But the upstairs hall is a foot wider than it was last week, and what used to be my older son’s bedroom looks enormous.
How did I work this magic? It’s all in the books. There used to be four large piles of homeless books lining one side of the hall; they’ve either found places on shelves, or they’re going to look for new homes at the town book sale next week. Same with the bedroom. I’m amazing myself by being willing to shift from thinking, “Well, I’ve never managed to get all the way through this one, and that means I have to keep it till I read it all” to “You know what? I’ve tried to read it four times and never got past page 50. I don’t care what the rest of the story might be! Get out of my life!”
Weirder yet, I’m rubbing my mental hands gleefully at the prospect of moving on from weeding out books to sorting through old scrambled papers and throwing most of them out. Who is this person, and how did she move into my life?
(Part of the answer to that question, of course, is that she was born from following the suggestions various people made when I asked for help with this problem several weeks ago. Thank you, all of you!!)
I’m starting to have visions of having the whole house reasonably organized by November. And I think it just might happen. Now, excuse me; there’s a table full of paper in the opposite corner of this room that’s begging to be cleared off.
A Number of Things 