Stuff

For Wed Oct 3

Wednesday we had an opportunity to go to  a play performed by one of Wade's long time friends. Afterward we met her and her brother and we starting talking about the nomadic life they were living being on tour with their play, and how the relationship with your possessions change.

For me in the last year, this has been significant in my understanding of home. We had our household items in storage for 17 months and lived in 40 different house between our last permanent one and this one. The first lesson I learned was how little we really needed. Christmas without my favourite decorations was still Christmas, in fact the best we ever had.

When we returned to Vancouver after traveling for so long, we lived here for a while in someone else's home and when we would go to the storage locker our kids would run into the locker and physically hug things that were familiar to them. Stuff did matter. I loaned some of my household items to a friend and when I saw them in her home first after not seeing them in my own home after a year, the sight of a coffee mug gave a me a response so strong I could feel it physically.

After storing things for a year, we got rid of HUGE amount of stuff, things we paid hundreds of dollars to store we just gave away because we realized we had lived without them for so long. But other things had become more precious to us, when we did unpack our Christmas ornaments last year we were so happy to see them.

Interestingly enough, when we do finally move overseas, I think I will now ship more things than I originally thought I would, but perhaps different things than I first imagined. Our art, photos, favourite blankets, sentimental objects and anything the children held precious. I will never talk them out of anything again. Pax still has trauma - today Eleanor wanted to take a gift to some freinds she was meeting for  playdate and Paxy kept saying, "Don't give away my toys, don't send my toys away..."

Don't worry Pax, you can hang on to what you need. I will too.