Day 125: Bend

Posted on May 5, 2014 by joshdaddy

I was all set to tackle that closet tonight, with all of its unnecessary towels and assorted, expired cold remedies and overlooked sundries. I walked into that upstairs bathroom, armed with a couple of plastic trash bags and a fierce look of determination, just as my wife was walking out:

“What are you doing?” She asked.

“I thought I would tackle that closet tonight. You know, with all of its–” She cut me off, a tired look in her eyes.

“Can we just do the dishes, get the kids to bed, and call it a night?”

I paused for a moment. I thought about all the really important reasons why tonight I really needed to clear out that closet. How time was short. How we needed to keep up our momentum. So I said to her:

“OK. I’ll go do the dishes.”

There’s great wisdom, I believe, in knowing when to stand firm, and when to bend like a reed. Nothing is gained in being overly rigid. Sure, we need to clear house, and yes, it is important to maintain a daily discipline.

But it is also important to know when to yield.

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Day 124: Consider

Posted on May 5, 2014 by joshdaddy

I started to title today’s post reflect, but then I remembered I’ve done that one already….

It’s probably about time once again for another overview of where I’ve been on this blog so far–we have just past the 1/3 mark, after all. But to be honest, today was a back-and-forth travel day to visit with my father-in-law, so I really haven’t had the time to do that type of large-scale assessment. No, the sort of “considering” I did today occupied the hour drive back home, with everyone else in the car asleep. Instead of letting my head go through the 108 things that usually take up my thoughts, I tried to reflect as best as I could on what “living simply” means to me at this point, and where this journey might be taking me.

I guess the seed for this reflection came earlier in the day, as my wife and I began discussing the difference between “living simply” and “privation.” For me, this call to simplify our lives starts with the recognition that we are already surrounded with an abundance, and the last thing we need is more of something. But it’s also a recognition that the more I have of something, the more complicated life gets.

To take a simple example–bath towels. On the drive home, one thought led to the next, and I found myself thinking about what tomorrow’s project might be. The upstairs bathroom closet seems like the next “lost cause” space to tackle. As I was going through a mental tally of what I knew was jammed in that one closet, I thought about all those bath towels. Yes, we are a family of five, and yes, we can go through a number of bath towels in any given week. But the more bath towels we own, the more likely I am to let those dirty ones pile up in the hamper. I mean: if I still have a dozen or so clean towels, why do laundry, right?

OK, that might seem like college dorm logic to you, but you get the picture.

So rather than thinking about simplicity as “doing without,” it seems to me that it is more about “making do” with what you need, and casting off the remainder.

The other part of this yearlong experiment is, of course, living deliberately. Sure, much of the de-cluttering and reducing has been about things, but what I am really after, I think, is a shift in perspective. For me, that shift isn’t really about becoming less materialistic; it’s about becoming more aware of what I’m doing, and why I’m doing it.

So tonight, on that drive home, I thought about how far I’ve come, and how much further I need to go. Fortunately, even though this blog is designed as a “yearlong experiment,” I know full well that I will be on this road for a while, always “down the path” a bit, but always with plenty of trail ahead of me to go.

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Day 123: Demolish

Posted on May 3, 2014 by joshdaddy

IMG_2343When I started this yearlong project, I didn’t know that I would be getting such a big motivation to reduce our lives to its bare essentials. Nine weeks is not a lot of time to pack up a house and clear out the clutter.

I’ve been taking lots of little steps, which is all good and fine, but it is time to accelerate that process….

So today, I tackled a particularly chaotic corner of our overly-chaotic basement. Or more precisely: I took a sledgehammer to it.

Ever since we moved into this house eleven years ago, we have had an old kitchen cabinet and countertop down in the basement, ostensibly serving as a work and storage space. The reality is: it’s just an ugly, old kitchen cabinet with tons of stuff piled up on it. I am not really much of a handyman, and I don’t think I’m going to dedicate the time and effort to become one anytime soon.

IMG_2345So today, I broke down the cabinet and hauled it away. I have to admit–there is certainly something satisfying about taking a sledgehammer to a disaster area and making it disappear!

In the process, I also managed to fill up two large trash cans with assorted, useless clutter–mostly bits and pieces of things that I’ve held onto, thinking that I might find use for them some day. I also laid out on the curb a bunch of useful things–various household repair and improvement items that are better off going to someone for more handy than me (all of that stuff disappeared from the front of my house within a half hour.)

I’m sure I can and will refine even further the tools and whatnot that I held onto, but for now, just clearing out that musty old cabinet was victory enough.

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Day 122: Give

Posted on May 3, 2014 by joshdaddy

Today was my wife’s 50th birthday, and she hasn’t been looking forward to it. It turns out, she told me, that today was one of the best birthdays she has ever had. She had coffee with one friend and lunch with another, and all day she has had phone calls and texts from family and friends wishing her well.

We didn’t do too much–but the kids and I did want to make the day a little special. So I brought home some flowers, and some sparkling grape juice, and we had a meal as a family–with tiramisu for dessert. My youngest sang a song for her mother. It was sweet.

After dinner, I made a comment that on birthdays we usually give gifts, and the person celebrating the birthday says “Thank you.” But tonight, I told the kids, I wanted to do that backwards, and asked them to tell their mother what gifts they thought she gives to the family each and every day. I was impressed how well each of them could articulate their mother’s gifts and skills.

And of course I did the same as well. It was a simple, little gesture–but one that I think she truly appreciated. And there’s still a little box I have for her too. Nothing too fancy or expensive, but a small token to acknowledge this “special” birthday.

I’ve written before about my own difficulty in receiving gifts. Giving–that’s easier for me. But I guess what I experienced tonight is just how fuzzy that line can be between who is giving and who is receiving.

Every day we are constantly exchanging gifts with the people in our lives. It’s good to take the time to acknowledge all that we receive, and all that we give.

 

 

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Day 121: Remember

Posted on May 1, 2014 by joshdaddy

So here’s the thing: I’m going to die.

But before you freak out over that news, remember this: you are going to die too.

It may seem morbid to some to contemplate one’s own death, but it strikes me as rather bizarre that so many of us– myself included–act on a daily basis as if death were not an inevitability, and that we have all the time in the world.

And of course we don’t.

Sure, I am a healthy male, with a healthy lifestyle, in his late forties and with no serious health events to date. The odds are, an actuary would tell me, that I will live at least through my next decade, and probably well beyond that.

But of course today could very well be my last.

So remembering that basic fact of life today got me thinking: if today were my last day, what are the things I would want to say to the people in my life? I could be wrong, but I think if I were on my deathbed, I wouldn’t regret the things I hadn’t yet crossed off of some “bucket list”; I would regret the things I left unsaid.

So that’s what I did. With my wife and each of my kids, I started with some version of “This is what I need you to know.” With my kids, I added at the end of what I shared: “So years from now, when you think about your papa, I want you to remember how I felt about you.”

And I did the same thing at work to a few of my staff as well–not quite as dramatic sounding, of course, but more along the lines of “If I haven’t said it explicitly before, let me say it now.”

And in the process of all of this–thinking about what I would want to make sure I said to the people in my life, what I needed to make sure they knew–it dawned on me that I could probably direct the same exercise toward myself:

What are the most important things that I need to tell myself? What are those important truths about myself that I need to know?

I started to write out on this blog entry the first thing that came to me this morning, but I thought twice about it and deleted what I had written. I think rather than sharing my answers with you, I will leave you with the same question:

What would you want to make sure you had said to the people in your life if today were your last day? And what would be those “must know” truths about yourself that you would want to affirm?

As the saying goes: Live every day as though it were your last; some day you will be right.

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Day 120: Talk

Posted on May 1, 2014 by joshdaddy

For someone who makes a living playing with words, I am amazed at how poorly I can communicate sometimes. Perhaps it’s not too surprising that I have the hardest time communicating effectively with the people who are closest to me in my life. Add to that a difficult topic for me to talk about without getting anxious–oh, let’s just say money as a random example–and it can get pretty bad.

It seems that whenever my wife and I get into a discussion about family finances, we quickly retreat into some well-worn (and completely unhelpful) roles. It’s as though we pull out our script books and start reading our parts. Oh, who am I kidding: we hardly need scripts by this point….

So after having one of those kinds of conversations, we tried again. And this time we talked. But instead of talking about money, or finances, we talked past those issues and started to address some of the things that motivate those scripted roles we fall into all too easily.

I wouldn’t say we solved our financial worries, and I wouldn’t say we tore up those scripts for good. But it was helpful to try to lay down, for a little while at least, those assumptions about how we talk about our problems, and to then try to address what’s really worth our care and attention.

 

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Day 119: Repeat

Posted on April 29, 2014 by joshdaddy

Boy, there are some days when I think: what a boring blog this must be! Especially on days like today–no big revelations, no deep insights, and no house-cleansing purges. Just basic, daily maintenance.

One little insight–though it’s something I’ve commented on before: I’ve come to recognize how “this thing” that I’m up to, this daily experiment, has its own rhythm, an ebb and a flow. And I’ve started to notice those things that push me off balance, as well as the things that help get me back on the beam.

For instance: I had two weeks of travel, and it’s taken me just about a week to start getting back into a daily routine.

So this morning, even though I was tired, I chose to forgo the snooze button and instead took time to sit quietly. The rest of the day, though, was pretty restless–I got caught up in all sorts of little tasks, and made no time to be present and attentive in the moment. Oh well….

When I got home and started making dinner, I realized something else that had happened during those two weeks of travel–lots of leftovers piling up in little plastic containers, many filled with food no longer fit for human (or canine) consumption.

So I repeated my kitchen sweep, tossing out enough food to make me realize that I still have a ways to go in reducing our food waste.

After the kitchen, I moved onto the dining room, which has started to devolve back into the landing pad for all sorts of just-walked-in-the-door drop-offs. I thought back to a few weeks ago when I reclaimed this table for its intended purpose and repeated that act of transformation.

That’s as far as I got tonight, and that’s fine. As I’ve written before: the goal in returning to these tasks and repeating them is less about “cleaning house” (though I’m happy to have a clean fridge and a clear table) than it is about reclaiming a sense of order and purpose in the house… and a sense of discipline in my own habits.

 

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Day 118: Push

Posted on April 28, 2014 by joshdaddy

OK, so today’s post is the yang to yesterday’s yin. Or vice versa. Or whatever.

In keeping with my Monday limitations, I have been trying to focus on little tasks that I can complete in a short period of time, but that will still give me a sense of having done something. But–as I noted yesterday–I’ve been feeling a bit overwhelmed with just how much junk we still have. I’ve been an advocate of “little steps” for the past seventeen weeks, but I’m starting to feel like the next little step should involve a bulldozer.

So tonight, instead of leaning and loafing at my ease (to borrow from Whitman), I decided to give myself a little push: just do something!

So I did. That same old treasure chest still had four side drawers that I hadn’t touched yet. Two of them had already been “cleaned out” by my middle child (which meant he dumped stuff from those drawers into the other two drawers so he would have room to store his Xbox game cartridges), so that left me with just two, measly little drawers to tackle. And what did I find worth keeping?

A couple of photos, a wooden spinning top I bought in India, the game Bananagrams, and a couple of other odds and ends. I redistributed these items to better suited locations around the house and left these two drawers empty.

And the rest of the stuff that had been hibernating in these two drawers? Off to the basement, and then off to charity donation!

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Day 117: Ease

Posted on April 27, 2014 by joshdaddy

So I just spent the last half hour walking around the house and feeling pretty overwhelmed.

I had a pretty relaxing day. I slept in, met some Friends in the morning, then took the boys out to the Chattahoochee to do some fishing. Not much luck with the fishing, but we had fun anyway. Then the three of us went out to eat, got some ice cream for dessert, and came back home.

Then I took my stroll around the house and saw all that needs to be done….

So much more stuff to clear out. Outgrown kids’ clothes. Toys. Books. Boxes of files and papers. The list goes on.

Plus all the everyday stuff. I started to list out all of those chores that need my attention, but just writing them down was making my anxiety level creep up.

So tonight, I have two choices: dig in and do something off that list… or allow myself a day of ease.

Today I’m choosing option #2.

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Day 116: Reassure

Posted on April 26, 2014 by joshdaddy

Today’s post is really just a continuation of yesterday’s….

We had a staff party tonight, to honor me and two other faculty members who are moving on. As I’ve said before: I always feel a bit awkward as the “guest of honor.” And also as I’ve said before: I keep reminding myself that an event like this is less about me than the people who are throwing it.

That’s probably particularly true in this instance. I am leaving a job I have been at for eight years, and I am leaving in a period of significant institutional transition. My departure, along with the retirement/resignation of a few others, has created some considerable anxiety about the future. Tonight’s event was a celebration, to be sure, but I think it was also a way to pull together as a department and reestablish a sense of solidarity.

So I showed up. I talked with as many people as I could. And I did my best to reassure everyone that it was possible for the department to continue to thrive, even with this period of transition and uncertainty.

I hope that what I’m writing doesn’t sound too self-important, especially when my intent is just the opposite. The truth is: I know that my department will do fine without me. And I’m hoping that they know that too.

But a little reassurance never hurts.

 

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