Why Complicate Things?

We did some bedroom redistricting in August before the school year started.

And something eye-opening happened as a result.

Number 3, 4, and 5 shared a room up until August. After the room shuffling, Number 4 is in her own room. It’s probably only a two-year arrangement, and when Number 5 gets to middle school and is on the same schedule as Number 4, she’ll probably move back in.

But for now, and for the first time in her life, Number 4 has her own space.

We emptied everything out of the room and repainted it. Number 4 picked the wall color, and we designed the rest of the room around that.

As you can probably imagine, removing two kids from a room creates quite a bit of space. We took two dressers and a bed out of the room.

My parents picked up a dresser on the side of the road for free about a year ago, and we repainted it. We had a desk downstairs in the basement that we repainted as well.

The room seemed so much bigger!

My normal inclination would be to fill it back up with stuff. I mean, the more room, the more stuff you can have, right?

But we didn’t do that. We have kept it pretty minimalistic.

There are a couple things we haven’t hung on the walls yet. We need a comforter for the bottom bunk.  There are a few things to put on some shelves.

But for the most part, the room is done.

Here is the eye-opening thing that has happened.

Number 4 does not miss all the crap that used to be in her room.

She does not feel the need for every open space to be filled with stuff.

She LOVES her room.

Number 4 is the typical gifted kid who is seriously organizationally challenged. Her room was always a disaster.

Until we took most of the crap out of it.

For six weeks, Number 4’s room has been almost spotless.

I said something to her about this last night when I was saying goodnight to her, and she said, “That’s because everything has a place, Mom.”

She showed me how and where everything was organized. She did this on her own, with no help from me.

Here is what her room looked like this morning after she left for school:

This is a complete 180 from what it looked like a couple months ago. The room has looked like this for over 40 consecutive days.

Number 4 is so much more organized and it isn’t difficult for her to stay on top of her stuff.

Because she doesn’t have that much stuff anymore.

And she doesn’t miss any of it.

She has her bed and her beanbag chair and her books and her reading lamp, and that’s pretty much all she wants.

She doesn’t miss the chaos or the clutter and she definitely doesn’t miss not knowing where her things are.

Less stuff has made her happier and much more organized and I haven’t said, “You need to clean your room before you do anything else,” in over six weeks.

It’s honestly been life-changing for her. And me!

Sure, being the only one in the room now helps, but she’s learned a pretty big lesson about stuff.

When it’s gone, you realize it didn’t make you happier. You realize you are often much happier without it.

You realize that stuff very often makes your life much more complicated than you want it to be.

Just the reminder I needed.

I’ve gotten rid of a lot of stuff recently, but there’s still a ways to go.

But bit by bit, I’m working on that. Working on keeping only the things that I would really, really miss if they were on gone.

Working on not having more things than I have places to put them.

Everything in its place.

And if there’s no place to put it, then it’s got to go.

Now I’m off to uncomplicate my life a little bit more before the kids get home from school.

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