downsize

Today I thought about all my challenges – they’re a lot! I need to downsize my life. It’s not just stuff, but so many aspects of my life. Yes, I’m a work in progress, and I think progress for me means less of everything. I also need 2 days off in a row at work, which won’t happen for at least 2 more weeks. I don’t mind being weird, but if I don’t get that time away from my job, I start to feel crazy and get sucked into everyone else’s craziness. Not good, not simple, not me.

My husband has FINALLY realized that we cannot afford to have 50 million horses (okay, 6 horses). So he’s selling one today, which is a significant downsize for us. There is one more who will be sold within the next couple of months (he needs a bit more training). Then we’ll be down to 4 which is manageable. Sally, the one leaving today, was a throwaway horse that we fattened up and that he trained in Natural Horsemanship, and now it is time for her to move on to the next phase in her life. I wish her the very best!

But putting it in that category because I cannot focus on this right now. I don’t even know what downsizing really means to me, beyond decluttering and living green. I have to complete my dissertation before I can consider anything else, and even having this on my list is stressing me. I need to downsize my list of goals.

Many people have been evacuated this summer for flooding and fires. I can only imagine what they face when they are left with having to choose what to take, what to leave behind. DBF and I this weekend did a walk-through of our house and outside, choosing what we would take for needs and wants if we had to leave home. We were thinking in terms of more drastic events, like having to evacuate due to war.

The animals and their food, tack, and equipment came first; then certain clothes, bedding, cooking and eating utensils, a handful of useful books, certain tools, toiletries, important papers, and a few things that have meaning and beauty, but are not utilitarian. It was a lot less than what we have now, and certainly I believe that our lives would be better without much of the extra stuff we have. I think we get bogged down – it’s all too much!

So I’m in the downsizing process. I’m working at it; that’s a success. Downsizing is more than decluttering, and it’s a part of living simply. Downsizing is the big stuff, the stuff that has to do with what I’ve already got in my life, and figuring out what needs to go. It has to do with feeling safe and confident that less is truly more – the way the world is now with oil driving everything from the economy to family reunions, and addressing global warming being one of the imperatives for the future, downsizing becomes one of the personal choices that really makes a difference in my day-to-day, and to the generations to come. Sounds all rhetorical, but sadly, it’s the truth. I believe I deserve the best in life, but downsizing means changing my idea of what is the best. It’s easier to let go of stuff than it is to let go of my attitude, my expectations, plans and dreams of the future. The best in life, now, might mean giving up what I thought was so essential for quality of life last year.

Downsizing, I’ve discovered since really thinking about it, is necessary in many different areas of my life if I’m to truly downsize to a simpler way of living. Downsizing can mean getting rid of a big house or too much stuff, but also making financial outlay less each month, or watching less TV. I think it has to do with living consciously. For lack of a better way of saying it, that’s how I’m saying it today. I am trying to live a conscious life.

That’s what it’s about. Sanity includes personal, professional, financial, emotional, physical spiritual, intellectual aspects to my life. Everything is too much right now. I want to do this, but I don’t know if it can be done in the next 12 months. I would like to downsize one thing in each of the 7 areas I mentioned (some will overlap, but then 7 things total). Should I make this a personal challenge? Is it possible to accomplish? Well, if I finish the PhD, that will be 1 thing that crosses over professional, intellectual, emotional and financial. If I work the 12-step program with DA, that will be financial and emotional. If I follow through on exercise and diet, that is physical, probably other areas too. I think I can do this.