Oh, I get by with a little help from my friends
Hmm, I get high with a little help from my friends
Hmm, gonna try with a little help from my friends
Paul McCartney and John Lennon finished this well- known ditty in mid-March, 1967 and it’s taken up residence in my mind ever since.
Getting by.
Getting high.
Gonna try.
That’s what friends are for.
When I’m grappling with something, instead of tossing and turning sleeplessly for weeks on end, I turn to my buddies to extrapolate from their varied experiences.
This week I’ve been devoting too much brain space to my physical space.
What happens when we contemplate implementing a change in our space and/or our residence?
I have a friend who had a comfortable, comforting home in a leafy green suburb where she and her husband raised two children and she partook in many community-based activities, including tutoring in the local schools. In my opinion, she had based much of her daily life around her location – in a seamless, satisfying manner.
Around Covid, she and her husband decided to move out of the community into an urban oasis – a high rise – a vertical community – overlooking the Ohio River.
I asked her how wrenching it was to leave the “old neighborhood.” And I was surprised by her answer.
“It was time to move on,” she replied brightly. “Now I go back and yes, it is nostalgic, but not in an ‘omg what did we do?’ way. It was time to move on to a new phase – and I am now very happy where I am.“
A different friend had a different situation. She didn’t want to move from her lovely home on a cul de sac, but her husband no longer wanted the responsibility of a house – one which needed a fair amount of work and upkeep. Finances, age, and maintenance issues contributed to his desire to move into a rental apartment.
“I went from a stable demographic of neighbors to an ever changing landscape of renters. I went from 2400 s/f to 1400 s/f.
“And in the process, I got rid of a lot of stuff – pictures, shoes, clothes, crystal goblets, dishes, my dining room table. It was overwhelming, but my sister went to work weeding out the excess and sorting through the mess to get me back to basics.”
That was five years ago. I ask her if she is happy.
“I’m not overjoyed, but my husband loves it,” she retorts.
“Seemed like a pretty big sacrifice on your part,” I probed, thinking maybe I had pushed a little too far into the personal.
“My husband had never asked anything of me before this,” my friend explained. “In marriage, you make compromises and this was the first time I needed to make a compromise – he had done a lot for me and this was something I could do for him. And he loves calling the slew of maintenance men when something goes wrong!”
“So,” I asked half-jokingly, “how does your husband handle the things about the apartment you don’t like?”
“Well,” she said, “I hate the carpet and it really could use replacing, but we would have to be in charge of moving all the furniture in and out – in order for the management to okay replacing it – a big hassle. So my husband tells me, ‘Just don’t look at it, kiddo.’
“So, I try not to,” my friend quips, with a wide grin.
Another friend had a very pragmatic approach to getting rid of things when they went to smaller quarters: “I took lots of pictures,” she said, “and I did regret parting with some of it, but honestly – there was no room so it needed to go.”
I look around the house I live in now. I did not raise my children in this house, but all of their stuff went with me and my husband even though the kids were long past living in the family nest.
And I realize the problem is that for the last 17 years, though I have not accumulated THAT MUCH, I have also NOT THROWN AWAY ONE THING!
Help!!!!!!! I need a big push.
And a little help from my friends on how to divest of a plethora of stuff. And where to start.
Suggestions welcome!
https://youtu.be/0C58ttB2-Qg?si=L4PBaOTj_b3U0ymD
Keep Preserving Your Bloom,
