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Best of 2009: Best change you made to the place you live

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[I'm participating in Gwen Bell's Best of 2009 Blog Challenge, in case you're all like, what's with the theme?]

What’s the best change you made to the place you live?

The thing about working from home is that you find yourself spending a lot more time at home. Which is mostly fantastic, as far as I’m concerned.

(Not only am I one of those irritating Highly Sensitive People [note: Havi is one but she is possibly the least irritating person I've ever never met] and practically a hermit; I AM A TRIPLE CANCER, PEOPLE. For the non-astrologer types, among whom I generally count myself, this more or less means that my natural habitat is baking cookies while obscenely pregnant and barefoot and, possibly, weeping. I have all these f e e l i n g s, you see. F e e l i n g s! Lots of them. Wait, come back! Where are you going?)

But it does make it harder to ignore certain things. For instance:

  • Between Mr. Gibson and myself, we have enough hobbies for twenty people. (But, in fact, Mr. Gibson and myself make up only two people!)
  • I keep a lot of what can only be described as “crap I ain’t never going to use” for all of the lame-o boring reasons most people keep that kind of crap.

So, long story short (though by no means less parenthetical), I’ve gotten rid of a whole lot of things. A whole lot. I’ve forced myself to get over my drawn-out emotional attachments to bits of things that I don’t ever think about except for when I open up the box they’re in to see what’s in there. I mean, I’m not a hoarder or anything, but editing my belongings was not easy. Slowly, slowly, my home has become a whole lot more functional, manageable, and… more alive, somehow? Warmer? More spacious? I can’t quite explain it. But it’s nicer. I’m more relaxed. (In stark contrast to the good people at the Salvation Army, who now break into a sweat when they see my car pulling up.)

Without getting too precious about it, it’s a tiny, happy thing that spreads outward. Makes me cheery. Makes me a bit gleeful. Particularly during this time of year, when I’m normally morose and jerky, and even more particularly this year, when all manner of hell has broken loose around my little family, it feels really good to love my HQ just a little bit more.