The Purge

Have you ever purged your home? We never used to use this term for getting rid of our junk but that is what it is called today so ... a-purging we will go.

Purge. Even the word isn't pleasant-sounding.

This may not be any big deal if a person is wise and does it every few years, but being married for almost four decades and having moved all our stuff with us every time we've vacated one home for another, does not light work make.

I actually fail to understand myself. For example ...

Instant pots have a "slow cook" function. Why didn't I send the two crockpots to wherever crocks and pots go when the more versatile meal-makers arrived? And ... why did I need two of each of these things?

I apparently owned six pairs of black stretch pants, as well. Six! I've only ever worn one and even those are unsightly on me. What was I thinking there? And I won't start on the shoe circus I've had happening over the years. For someone who wears the same pair of flip-flops all summer, I'm not sure why ...

In the past I have taught music lessons to children and adults, but while purging I found four (yes, four!) metronomes! I rarely used one while teaching but I collected ... four.

I also found every birthday and Christmas card ever given to us and now, unfortunately, I don't have time to read them all before passing them through our over-worked shredder.

I couldn't begin to tell you how many old cassette tapes have been collecting dust, but here is where my husband and I stopped to smile. As we stared at the one labelled "Stonebolt" we both began humming the tune to "Outrun the Sun". Our minds raced back to our earliest years as we remembered blasting that in his '66 Mustang. Surprisingly, unlike the old VHS player we pulled from the graveyard of storage in our basement, we have no machine to play cassettes with, but we found the song on YouTube and enjoyed a short trip to the past.

Watching the plethora of home movies we took when our kids were young was fun too.

That huge video camera may have been a pain to lug around but it's worth it now. At least something nice came out of the Great Purge of 2022! I sighed as I enjoyed watching "thin" me dance around with my tiny, so-cute children. That is, until I glanced in the mirror that night. Then I just wanted to scream, "How did you let this happen?!" to my reflection.

My friends encouraged me, before we took the purging plunge. "Purging your home won't take any time at all", they said. Clearly they'd never peeked inside any closet or our storage room.

I'm pretty sure if it's not a sin to acquire so many material things, it's at least close. I'm ashamed to admit this, but I must've simply re-bought some things because I was too lazy to look around and find what I already had. But how could I have lost three metronomes?

I don't like this about myself. At all.

Clearly I need to pray for wisdom for not only my relationships and how I spend my time, but for how I spend my money.

I wish I would have seriously asked myself if I really needed it, before I bought something. Of course, if I had pondered that, the thrift stores in our city wouldn't have half their new products this month.

If there are other easy-spenders out there - I want you to know that - I get you. But all those baubles I've collected, the "important" purchases I've made because I've fallen in love with something glittering on a store shelf that beckons me with it's sale price -- all those things are just -- stuff.

It really is just here today and gone tomorrow ... but not so quickly if you hoard it in the basement.