Warning: This post is painfully honest, read at your own risk

Shame

I’m sitting here in my craft room, absolutely overwhelmed (I could say just “whelmed” and it would mean the same thing, but you might think I was half asleep as well as overwhelmed if I wrote whelmed unless you, too, are a dictionary freak) with all of the fabric and other crafting supplies I’ve accumulated in the 22 months since I’ve lived in this house. Before moving here, I purged and purged, taking many, many loads of stuff to DI, selling some on Craigslist, and giving away a lot more. It felt good, cleansing, refreshing. Now I’m back at the point where my possessions are weighing me down, making me feel sluggish and depressed, shameful. At my worst moment, I wonder what is wrong with me that I keep buying fabric and various other craft things, always on sale of course (arghhhhhhh), far beyond what I’ve got the time to use; somewhere in my mind I live in a fantasy land where someday I will have all of the time and energy in the world to make all of the projects I have in mind, not to mention numerous duplicates of each project since I nearly always buy enough to make MANY iterations of the same thing. Today the excuse is that I can sell it on etsy; who knows what it will be tomorrow. The bottom line: I buy too much stuff.

I’m pretty sure the reason I buy too much stuff is fear that the day will come when I can’t buy what I want, so I’d better get it now while I can. The fear comes from a long period in my life where I didn’t have enough, where what I wanted or needed or even thought mattered little and where I felt I had no control, or very little, over the direction and circumstances of my life. Maybe in buying too much stuff, I’m thumbing my nose at that time in my life, saying, in essence, “I can have anything I want, so just back off.”  I think that also implies a measure of selfishness or self-will and self-pity also, of wanting to indulge myself since, poor me, I’ve had such a rough time.

Well, I’m here today to say, enough is enough!!! I’ve had it with the past directing my today and my future. I don’t want to feel sorry for myself. I don’t want to live in fear of scarcity. I don’t want my possessions to drag me down, rather to enrich my life and the lives of others I love. So with that in mind, right now I’m going to get rid of fully half, if not more, of my fabric stash. And I pray to God that I can live in joy rather than fear and not rely on purchases of fabric and craft supplies for a temporary lift. Here’s to purging—hurrah! Hurrah! Hurrah!

PS: Let me know if you want any of the fabric I’m purging, free of course; the rest will go to DI.