[Thespiritexpress] "Enough" ~~~~

[Ron Nadeau]

The essay below is something you may relate to ~~~~~~ I know that I certainly do in many respects ~~~~ it is reflective of CHANGE ~ and meeting life in ways that are uncomfortable and also require some work ~ both physically, mentally and emotionally ~~~~~ perhaps more so the later of the three~.  See if you can relate~! 

Only Love, ~Ron 



It’s by Jimmy Dunne, a writer/songwriter/producer/guy-who-does-other-things in Southern California <https://email.mg2.substack.com/c/eJwlUMtuhDAM_JrNEeUBCRxy6KW_gUJs2LTgoDy6ol_f0JWsOXg0Y894V3CL6bJnzIXdMJfrREv4yjuWgonVjGkOYKXgQhutGNgexDiMLOR5TYiHC7stqSI767IH70qIdCsmIxV7Wj6pVclVGj_0DpweUPeLgwVhcotZp_dZVyEgebT4g-mKhGy3z1LO_FAfD_nZ5iscxwWVCDsfj7aA-KIcfgNtLFjJpRCSj0JKqUwnOw-oUTc0S7_qlXfeD6Kq8ffR82OTXa5LLs5_32Ys2Se6VHKhm_XUxbTdceZGHpVCuWYkt-wI76TlXdh_9nlDwtSKhNkVK7QaJ62FMZMZ39FaFf3AJzEIztpViE1FthJgah8QNN_rD7NnhnU>, who explained in 700 words or so what it’s like to upend your life once the kids are gone, move into a smaller space—and find out that it’s OK.

Quick background: If you don’t know Dunne, you probably know some of his work. 

He started as a writer and producer on Happy Days and its spinoff Joanie Loves Chachi (you’re dating yourself if you nod along with those credits). Later, he wrote some really big hit songs, including work performed by Whitney Houston, Janet Jackson, Jermaine Jackson, Anne Murray, Dave Loggins, and Kenny Rogers.

Add up all the records (performed by various artists), and it’s something like 28 million copies sold.

Anyway, I read this, reached out to Dunne, and he said go ahead and share it. Here’s what he had to say:

My wife Catherine and I recently moved.

I realized I had something I never knew I had.

Thirty-four years ago, I carried my wife in my arms over the threshold in our home. Thirty-four years ago. 

From newlywed days, to witnessing our babies go from little girls to young adults.

So many great memories, in every inch of every room of our home.

I didn’t think I was ready to ‘downsize.’ What an awful word. 

I liked walking through our girl’s bedrooms and still seeing their stuff. I liked our backyard. I liked imagining our kids coming down the steps every Christmas morning.

We put it on the market. It sold in a couple days. Suddenly agreements thicker than my leg were instructing me to clear everything I ever had and knew—out.

Every night I found myself saying goodbye to our backyard, to our garden of roses that Catherine would till and trim, to the sidewalk where the girls drove their Barbie cars and learned to ride their bikes, to our front lawn where we hosted tons of talent shows with all the kids on the block—and the red swing on the front porch.

We found a condo in town and started lining up our ducks. What were we keeping? What were we tossing? We vowed that if we’re going to do this, we weren’t putting anything in storage.

I literally threw out half my stuff. Half. 

Half of the furniture. Half of my clothes, books. 

And the big one… way more than half the boxes in the attic.

The attic was more than an attic. It held our stories. Everything in every box, every framed picture, was a story.

After we gave away almost all of the living room furniture, we split the room in half and brought down everything that had been the girls’, from the attic and from their rooms.

We invited our daughters over, handed them a cocktail, and said:

“There’s good news and bad news. We’ve saved all this stuff: your outfits, drawings, dolls, skates—for you. It’s now yours. The bad news, whatever’s not gone by Friday at 10:00 a.m., is getting chucked in that giant green dumpster in front of the house.”

The girls thought we were Mr. and Mrs. Satan. But they went through it all. That Friday, most of it went out the front door and right in the dumpster.

I filled the entire dining room with boxes of all my old stuff. Grade school stories and pictures, report cards, birthday cards, trophies, you name it. 

Boxes of old plaques and diplomas and just stuff and stuff and stuff like that. How could I throw any of this out? I may as well have been throwing me in the dumpster!

But this little jerk on my shoulder kept asking: What are your kids going to do with all this a week after you're six feet under? They’re gonna chuck it all out!

Here’s the crazy thing. The more I threw stuff in there, the easier it got. And I started to kind of like throwing it up and over in that thing. I started to feel lighter. Better.

We moved in a half-the-size condo – and the oddest thing happened.

It became our home.

A picture here and there on the wall, Catherine’s favorite pieces of furniture, all her knickknacks in the bathroom. We blinked, and it looked and felt just like us.

And then I found that thing I never knew I had.

Enough.

I had enough.

The wild thing was that having less opened the door to so much more. More in my personal life. More in my career. More in everything.

All I have to do is look in the eyes of my two girls, and they take me back, every time, to the most beautiful, colorful, emotional scrapbook I could ever dream of having.

All I have to do is hold my wife’s hand, and it hypnotizes me back to kissing her for the first time, falling in love with everything she did, seeing her in that hospital room holding our first baby for the first time.

It sure seems there is so much more to see, and to feel, and to be—if I have the courage, if I have the will, to shape a life that’s just …

Enough.


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