(Taking) Stock pile

I'll admit it - I'm a hoarder. If there's something I'm interested in, I have a prodigious ability to accumulate said thing in vast quantities. This has had consequences from the comic (my collection, as a child, of empty oatmeal and tea bag packets) to the tragic (times, as an adult, when I have pathologically overspent on these collections). Although I know that living simply isn't about deprivation, I nonetheless feel that the hoarding drive is something I have to learn to effectively manage as part of a committment to the simple lifestyle. The primary reason is that hoarding is, after all, about stuff - and about stuff in a way that feels unhealthy and out of balance to me. There's an aspect of hoarding that has the touch of frenzy, of obsession. I find that the desire to accumulate sometimes becomes more of a focus than the things I'm hoarding. And as there's a dimension to simplicity that tells us to slow down and take pleasure in the things we have without grasping for more, I realize how far off that mark my hoarding puts me.

I received some money for Christmas - on the one hand, perfect, as it allows me the luxury of buying some things for myself that I really wouldn't otherwise have the ability to buy. But the process of agonizing over how to spend the money has shed new light on my oft-dysfunctional relationship to the objects of my desire. When I found out I was pregnant, two things happened: we cinched up the financial belt tighter than ever and I sold a sizeable chunk of my library to raise some much needed funds (and clear some much needed space) for the impending arrival of our daughter. I had to make peace with letting go of some of my books and accept that there wasn't likely to be extra money to buy more for quite a while to come. Coming to terms with these two things was a bit rough at the start, but as time went on, a funny thing happened. Not only was I OK with the new status quo (nearly 20 boxes of books that had been stashed in a closet gone, and no books bought for months), but I found that getting away from buying also got me away from the obsessive dimension of the hoarding. As it fizzled out, I clearly felt the lifting of a burden. I had been completely unaware of the sense in which buying fed on itself, fueling the desire to buy more and creating an odd sort of stress. The time I had once spent thinking about acquiring stuff I now spent on other things, like knitting and baking and writing. Granted, as a new mother, my priorities underwent a massive shift anyhow, but there undeniably was an aspect of lightness that came from not being yoked to the wheel of getting.

Enter the Christmas money. I've caught myself once again sinking lots of time and energy into trying to decide what to buy, time that - you guessed it - I'm no longer spending on those other activities. In some ways, having this money to spend feels like a burden, and there's a part of me that almost longs for the uncomplicated state of being moneyless. Don't get me wrong, I'm grateful for the gift and no - I don't really wish I hadn't gotten it - but it has nonetheless been a powerful lesson in how not to relate to the material things in our lives. I still want books and I still plan to buy a few fun things for myself, but I really need to find a way to take the need out of it, to keep it healthy and fun and simple.