My Minimalist Journey ( Off the Beaten Path)

     So while Josh and Ryan (my virtual minimalist mentors) spent Day 3 moving everything they owned into one room and throwing sheets over the rest so as to allow themselves to start pulling things out one by one,  I'm thinking "Who does this?" (And am for sure asking "Who does this in a day?") They apparently have far more time on their hands than I,  not to mention friends with a far different take on what constitutes a party. And while that little diversion alone is enough to make anyone quit, I'm not quitting. I'm just tailoring...
     The good news is: I'm starting to feel it. ("It" being a shift in my consciousness from overwhelm towards relief.  "It" also being the Christmas spirit...only the real spirit...Not the store bought kind.)
     Funny how digging for solutions in one area of your life can bring about solutions in another.  Somewhere between cleaning out old jewelry boxes and and boxing up unused stemware, my mind wandered over to "What else can we clear? This feels good." and with that, new answers began to appear.
     For starters, I now want to declutter other areas of my life: my laptop, my bills, my schedule...even my holidays. Where normally this time of year finds me racing from place to place, wondering if I have the right tags on the right gifts and paranoid I may've left something behind in my mad dash to the next event, this year I'm holding my horses (or my goats as the case may be). You may race through your holidays if you like...Me? I think I'll stroll.
     In the same way I might swap a too large sweater for one more my size,  I've decided to swap larger group gatherings for smaller, more intimate one-on-one visits with those friends I've been wanting to catch up with all year.  "Thank you for your gracious invitation...but when the dust settles, would you like to take a drive?" has served me well, and you know what? Not only has no one minded...they've actually preferred it. Meaningful conversations have replaced yelling above crowds  in festive, albeit less engaging exchanges. It's the presence, not the presents, I'd been hoping for.
     This is not to diss large gatherings. If a room full of people is where your heart leads you this season, by all means, embrace it fully. As for me, my heart requested "Quieter please...More meaning please...Less clutter please." And so I embrace this for me.
     As it says in Ecclesiastes, "To everything there is a time and a season..."
     For me this season, it's time to try a new tact. The good news is, it's working.