The Teeny Tiny Human Dilemma

Moving has forced me to deal with my life and my future with head on brutal honesty. In this “moving space” I have to answer for everything I own. It all needs to be justified and categorized and color coded (ok, not really… but if my friend Trish were here, she’d have different colored post-its all over the place).

Sell it or give it away.
Store it.
Move it to Burundi.

Sometimes this categorizing feels freeing, like a chance at a new pared down way of life. At other times it makes me mad. Mad that I have to categorize at all. Mad that I can’t just own something because it’s beautiful. I am tired of justifying the endless uses of a potato masher to myself before packing it in the “going to Burundi” box. I don’t get a moving truck, just the back of a vehicle and a couple of suitcases. There is simply no room for things that can’t prove their purpose to me. Which means you can usually find me following Ben around the house like a puppy with before mentioned potato masher in hand, waving it while yelling, “Do they have potatoes there?” “What about pasta, did you see any pasta?”

My boys, like all tiny humans, grow like absolute weeds and today I confronted the growing pile of itsy bitsy baby clothes that no longer fit my rolly poly 16 month old. They have been sitting there, staring at me, for months. Do I place them in storage in the hopes of having another teeny tiny human someday? Or, do I part with them here and now. Buying new clothes for a perfectly similar baby boy (just assuming, considering my track record) seems like a waste with all these cute baby clothes staring up at me. So does storing them if there’s never going to be another little man. Then there’s the additional, but unthinkable, variable… what if it’s a girl. That’s when my brain went into a tailspin and I began following Ben around, not with a potato masher, but with one big question… “Hunny, do you think we are going to have more kids?” Poor Coffee Guy, he just gave me a look like I had stabbed him in the side. Ok, so maybe that was a little too much pressure, but what am I supposed to do about this teeny tiny clothing dilemma?

You see, I already know what it’s like, opening those forgotten boxes. Staring at things you don’t remember ever owning and thinking to yourself, “Why on earth did I ever think this was worth keeping?” “How old IS this?” “Does this even work?” I’ve been there, I was the bride who stored her wedding gifts in her parents basement, never used, and took off for a faraway land. Is that kind of bride even in a category? Maybe like “Adventure Bride” or “Faraway Bride” or “Other Continent Bride.” Anyway, before I start coming up with even stranger bride categories, it’s here I stop, except to tell you that most of my little boy’s teeny tiny things now reside at the center for abandoned babies, Shepherd’s Keep, just two minutes from our house. I think they will be put to a much better, truer more beautiful use there. Letting go is a beautiful thing.

Luv,

Kristy (the mother of a toddler not a newborn)