4:42 p.m

We pile into the house and my voice echoes in the living room. A daily admonishment to put the shoes away, hang the coats. I pull the half-bent folders out of the backpacks, wiping the strawberry smear off of the shiny cover of one of them. There are papers to sign, flyers asking for donations of money and time, more decisions to make and events to squish into a packed calendar. Notes from friends flutter to the floor. My son’s folder is crammed with “seat work,” adorable bears and narwhals counted and sorted and colored with crayons.

In exactly forty-eight minutes, my daughter is due on a soccer field across town. She is to be fed, clothed in layers of sports frocks, hair pulled up (that’ll be a battle…), and carrying her bag, ball, and bottle of water. Do her earrings need to be out for practice or just games? I can’t remember.

I’ve been exhausted since I was thirty. Everyone’s exhausted.”

I push away the ever-present fatigue. “I’ve been exhausted since I was thirty. Everyone’s exhausted.” I smile, remembering MacKenzie McHale, one of my favorite characters from Newsroom. Sadly, wallowing in Aaron Sorkin quotes will not get us to the field on time.

After scooping crockpot slop onto paper plates, I sign the papers due tomorrow and file away the rest, writing a reminder to myself to sit down and deal with it. I carry the pile of kindergarten papers to the table and sit next to my son. We look through them together.

“Are there any that you really want to keep?” I ask.

“The stegosaurus.” He raised his little eyebrows emphatically. “Definitely the stegosaurus. My friend is going on a trip and he drew that for me so I can remember him.”

“What about the Write The Room sheet? Is that a keeper, or did you just enjoy working on it?”

“You can recycle it,” he says.

“Your writing is getting really good, buddy.”

“I know.” A blush of pride passes over his cheeks. Suddenly, he snatches the papers and flips them over. Drawn on the back of a cut-and-glue sorting sheet is a blue stick figure next to a big black dog with a smiley face where the snout should be. “We have to keep this,” he tells me. “It’s me and the dog! Can I tape it in her crate?”

I can’t help but grin. “Sure,” I say. “When you finish your dinner.”

I fold the pile in half and slip it into the recycling bin. A small twinge of sadness passes through my heart. But when I lift my eyes, I see the two frames with sweet kid art. On another wall hangs a giant bulletin board adorned with the best of the best. An A+ math test. A construction-paper portrait of George Washington. The second grader’s winning student council campaign speech. Her platform was kindness.

I melt back into the moment, closing the lid on the bin. Right now I need to get my little athletes ready for soccer. I observe that they are not eating the slop. Rolling my eyes, I return to the table with bananas and granola bars.

It wasn’t always this simple to banish the clutter and stay in the moment. Their giant Georgia bedrooms were stuffed with every scrap of paper on which their chubby hands made a mark. Taped on the walls, on the doors, stuffed in boxes under their beds. When we packed for Michigan, I knelt on the floor drowning in paper.

“But she made it,” I whined to the good husband. “What am I saying about the value of creativity in this house if I throw it out? And I need to remember all of this cuteness.” The good husband lifted a torn piece of lined paper out of the pile. It was hastily scribbled with pen and shoved under the bed.

“Babe,” he said, holding it up. His eyebrows raised in a grown-man mirror of our little son. “Really??”

“Fine,” I muttered, snatching it and crumpling it into a trash bag. The good husband waited until I raised my eyes back to his. “We’ll remember this,” he said. “Trust me. We don’t need every single picture they ever drew to remember the cuteness.”

It took countless recycling bags and a much smaller set of bedrooms, but I began to change my attitude. I began to ask different questions.

Not, “Where should we hang this one,” but

“Is this one of your favorites or was this just fun to make?”

“What can we take down so we can put this one up?”

“Do you want to move the toys so we can make another box for art?

It wasn’t just paper. Slowly, they took ownership over their relationship with all the stuff. And I did a ton of modeling. I began to make sure the kids watched me get rid of my own stuff. They sat wide-eyed in the back of the car as I dropped off bags and boxes and bins of my possessions at the donation center. On each trip, I would put on a cheery mask and answer their questions.

“If I want to read those books again, I can check them out in the library.”

“We have enough plates. We don’t need these extra ones. Yes, they are pretty but our cupboards are stuffed.”

“It doesn’t make me feel comfortable when I wear it. And that’s okay.”

“I do like that art but we have nowhere to hang it and I bet someone else would like it too. It’d be better in their house than crammed in our garage.”

“I don’t even know what this stuff is and honestly I’m sick of dealing with it.”

My carefully-constructed answers for the kids eventually became my truth. I didn’t actually need it the stuff to create happiness and calm. In fact, I was happier with less of it. There was more space for the moment I was living in.

The stuff we surround ourselves with does not define us. Our actions define us. What we choose to do with our time, our gifts, our creativity, our love, those are the things which define our lives.

It wasn’t a single overhaul or an overnight solution that transformed the way we live in our family. It was a change in the narrative. Discussions began to revolve around different questions. “Is this taking up my space? My time? Who else could use this? Instead of buying X, could we throw that little bit of money into a donation for Y? How would that make us feel?”

And, as I said in my last post, we are not over here basking in bare minimalist spaces. My kids’ rooms are filled to the brim. The playroom is stocked. The kitchen is being used to every inch of its capability. But when the stuff spills out into our lives, stealing our time and our calm, we clean. Not clean up, but clean out. And we talk. Why did we buy this? Is it worth its space anymore in our lives? Who else could it serve?

Last week, my daughter lounged on my bed watching “Brain Games” on my phone. When I popped my head in, she looked up. “Mama,” she said, “I really like being in your room. It makes me feel calm.”

I grinned smugly. “That’s because it’s not crammed with stuff.”

“Like, it’s clean?” Her nose wrinkled in confusion. “But you hate cleaning.”

“I do,” I said. “And the less stuff I have everywhere, the less I have to clean. I only have my very very favorite things in here.”

“Where’d the rest of it go?” she asked, before answering her own question. “Oh yeah. You donated it.” I nodded. She grinned at me and pointed at the dresser.

“The elephant I gave you is on the dresser.”

I stepped in the room and sat down beside her. “That’s because it’s one of my very very favorite things.” She threw little self against me and I inhaled the moment. Her little girl hugs will be seared into my memory forever. I do love that elephant, but I will never need it to remember how I love her.

“You know,” I said slowly. “Your room could make you feel calm too if you got rid of some of your stuff. You notice how you can actually see the surface of my dresser and there’s actually room to sit on the bed…” She snatched herself back and grimaced at me.

“I am not giving away my stuffed animals!” she growled.

“If they make you happy right now, you don’t have to,” I said. “But is there anything else you have that you’re kinda done with? Anything anyone else might use?”

She patted her chin. “I can think of a few things. Will you help?”

“Of course. Let’s go.”