Breathing Room

Do you ever feel like you can't breathe? Like your environment is stifling you?

Here's the thing: I hate clutter. I can't deal with it. I am currently on holidays from work, sitting at home, stressed out of my mind because I can't see the floor with all the post-holiday clutter. I've been spending most of my time spaced out on the computer so I don't have to look at it.

The worst part? The clutter has nowhere to go. We have literally used up every last inch of space in this house. The shed is full. The basement storage is packed to the rafters. Our bookshelves creak under the strain of books and movies and toys.

It is slowly driving me insane.

We are at least a year away from being able to afford moving to a bigger space. The thought of a new house is one of the few things able to sustain me. The idea of a garage to store tools instead of trying to cram them into a front hall closet that is already overburdened with hats and coats. The idea of a spare bedroom as opposed to a futon shoved into a playroom/office/storage space.

My husband is a collector (he has more toys than the kids if you count his miniatures collection) and a pack rat. I, too, hate to throw things away, though I am the first to snap and start hauling boxes to the salvation army when things get too tight.

The worst part is that it is so difficult to get rid of things. The kids do still play with their toys. We are holding on to tons of baby clothes and accessories because we may have another in a couple of years (we're still undecided, but the crap stays here in the meantime). I am not the kind of wife that can ask her husband to get rid of action figures, especially when they mean so much to him...just like he would not ask me to get rid of my boxes and boxes of books. And frankly, most of the room is taken by things that we need, like furniture, that we just don't have the room to store. We know we'll need it when we get a new place, so we hold on to it, because we can't afford to buy all new furniture on top of a new house when we do finally buy a new place.

I feel like I am drowning. We just need a little more space -- space to move in. I am not sure what else I can do to this house to expand our storage space. I actually stary crying a little just thinking about the fact that I cannot move.

In the meantime, the next person to buy something that isn't food just might face a towering inferno of rage if they don't find a place that they can put it BEFORE they buy it!