Empty Drawers: Tuesday's Reflection

Thanks to our recent garage sale and our intentional decision these past years to downsize, we have drawers and shelves and closets packed far less tightly. We have fewer bins stacked in storage areas. 

We have empty drawers. 

While we will never be minimalists, we feel less smothered by stuff. Granted, we have loved our collections and the process of amassing treasures, but enough is enough. Now is another time.

This past weekend we had a garage sale, a very successful one, I might add, and it was interesting to note people's reactions. Some were almost melancholy.

"How can you bear to give up so many beautiful things?"

"I should be home cleaning out and having my own garage sale, instead of buying more things myself."

"I don't need one more thing, but…"

Others, usually young women with a child or two in tow, were so excited to find items that could add to the beauty and pleasures of their own home tending. I love imagining my vintage tablecloths in kitchens and dining rooms and green depression glass containers now full of sugar and flour on open shelving. In someone else's home. This is the right time of their lives for gathering. 

Often people say they want to simplify and sort and organize at this stage of life, so they don't leave their children with a mess. That is admirable, a gift, and a worthy goal, but for me this process is also about creating emotional space, along with time to be and do what matters most right now.  

Of course, empty drawers can be a temptation. The temptation to fill them again, but I am determined not to let that happen. My newly created empty spaces do not mean I feel empty or am empty. My empty drawers are more a symbol of freedom, rather than emptiness. In fact, I feel full in the best heart-full ways. 

An Invitation
What spaces do you want to create in your life? I would love to know.