11 things

What are 11 things your life doesn't need in 2011? How will you go about eliminating them? How will getting rid of these 11 things change your life?

My first thought on reading this prompt was, "Only eleven things?".

Then I started writing a list, and realised that I was struggling to get to eleven.

The things I had listed were BIG things, things that would require a lot of work to eliminate.

Unfortunately for my list (but fortunately for my life) there are not a lot of time-wasting, soul-draining things in my daily life, at home or in my day job... to the extent that this actually creates some of the things that I would like to eliminate.

Dust, for example. There's a lot of it in my house because I can rarely bring myself to pick up a broom or vacuum cleaner or duster. I can happily and easily keep things neat, but pristine surfaces? Too great an effort, and in a draughty period home like ours, a losing battle.

To eliminate dust from my life (or, at least, my home) in 2011 would require the services of a cleaning person, whom I have already identified and would dearly love to employ for an hour or two each week. [Those of you who have been reading this blog since Mondo Beyondo know how keen I am to proceed with this arrangement!]

But convincing my husband that having a "stranger" come through the house would be worth the (negligible) compromise to our privacy and security would require another sort of discussion entirely.

Suddenly, the elimination isn't as clear-cut as switching on the vacuum cleaner. Suddenly, courage and creativity and negotiation and empathy and compromise are required. Suddenly, being prepared to argue and disagree and love each other anyway becomes critical.

The mere act of writing a list of eleven such things was too tiring for me to contemplate. I feel it's ground I've gone over too many times, and I know I'm not ready to meet some of these challenges head-on.

Yet.