Downsizing

I am the youngest of three children, and since I have been out of the house for the past three years at college, my parents are now seriously considering downsizing from our 4-bedroom house to something smaller for just the two of them. My mom looks at property on the internet all the time, but who knows where or when they will officially put the house on the market. My parents keep making upgrades to the house - painting walls so they're more "family friendly;" taking out old shower glass windows and replacing them with new curtains; selling old things we never use (i.e. my drum set). It's a lot of minor changes that are making the house I grew up in take on a different light.

My bedroom no longer feels like my bedroom. It has little things all around the room that are mine, but I kind of forget how it felt to have it be "my room." It doesn't have any sense of ownership to it any longer. I feel more connected to the family room than I do to my bedroom. It's almost hard to sleep in that room, as it feels (and is) cold and detached.

Some things never change: the couch is always in the same place, the same Christmas lights are up on the outside of the house... but this year, it feels as though there is less 'stuff' around the house. No more material memories of the three busy children running around the house, and now there are only simple, hidden reminders of my past.

After this post is published, I will be downsizing my own room - Finding pictures and pieces of paper that used to mean so much to me, and now I have to find a final resting place for them. As much as I don't want to be bogged down in meaningless 'stuff,' I still think some memories are worth holding on to. We'll see what I end up with... but a big trash bag is accompanying me upstairs, where most of my meaningless 'stuff' will meet its end.