Some of the best lessons learned are those we go into somewhat dragging our feet. It's not that we want to be difficult, it's just that we don't seem to know any other way to go about it.
This is proving to be one of those weeks...and these are sure to be some of those lessons.
I have no doubt but that when I get to the other side, these lessons learned will be of great value. How do I know that? It's really quite simple...though I am no longer silently screaming inside, I am quietly dragging my feet at the thought of the task that now lies ahead.
Years of gathering and storing, collecting and reorganizing adds up to a fair amount of inventory. Don't get me wrong, they are all useful things, they are just no longer particularly useful in my life.
I understand when you tell me the same thing of your life as we set about to make our Staging plan to prepare your home for sale. No one said it was going to be easy...but few things in life that are worthwhile are ever easy.
One day we will downsize, the reasons "why" won't matter. The reality is that letting go must happen. In that moment of letting go, the heritage of being my father's daughter and a
keeper-of-all-things-that-may-one-day-be-useful, will meld with the sensibility of being my mother's daughter and
keeping-only-the-practical.This is the week that I get a jump start on that day. Closets, cupboards, bookshelves and drawers...there is no longer a safe hiding place.
And so it goes with preparing a home for sale. It doesn't matter why you are moving...by personal or professional choice, or by a force of some financial hand that has been dealt you...the art of Staging can move in and take over where we are paralyzed to move.
We are faced with questions at every turn: Where do we begin?...What do we keep?...What do we pack away?... How can this emptiness feel like home?
With a deep breath, some boxes and a plan, the moving dance can begin. We may find that it's not altogether an unpleasant tune we are moving to as we learn to trust the process.
The process of creating order out of chaos is about making one decision at a time. Do we keep, toss, or donate? With each decision made comes a bit of cleansing until the last decision has been made...the last counter cleared...the last box has been packed...and the last sigh released. In the end of it all we look about us and realize that clutter has been replaced by order.
We may have kicked and screamed at placing away our treasures so that buyers could walk through our rooms and see themselves living here. We may have silently revolted at the idea of living in cold and vacant rooms. We may have thought we were giving away too much of ourselves.
Yet we find that with our "things" now distributed to appropriate places, we haven't lost the memory of the moments we had been displaying. The memory remains safely stored in our heart. The Staged rooms we now occupy are warm and inviting, not only for the buyer, but for us as well.
And though we thought our life was tied up with the wonderful things that surround us, in the end we realize that the important things in life aren't things at all.
It's time for Back-to-School and Fall Fix up projects! Wouldn't it be great to save 10% on supplies from Lowe's?
