the freedom of space?

Reading today about how someone who decluttered has more space to be creative.  She got on a path of 'shoulds' in her 20's - should have a career, a house, a car, clothes, furnishings etc.  When letting go she found a more creative life was possible.  Don't know if it's automatic - declutter = artistic creation.  I still like to have things around that hold memories.

The interesting part of her post was the career thing.  I think back to my very early twenties sometimes.  I was living in a little house outside of a small town called Aldergrove BC.  I didn't have a job, I stayed home and cooked on a wood stove, went for walks with the dog, knit, sewed or whatever I wanted to do every day.  I was in the country, living a simple life which was what I wanted, so I remember feeling very content.  I had no particular ambition - I was a free spirit.

don't know where this is, but it's very like Ontario countryside that I love

One day my partner was killed no let's be honest here at least, he killed himself.  And my life changed direction drastically.  I came back to the big city of Toronto and got a job to support myself.  Then a career developed, I found another man who I married, we got a house, and continued the good middle class materialist lifestyle of the 80's.  Job advancement, better house, BMW, etc.  Until I had surgery in 2008 I never had more than three weeks away from the job in thirty years.

this is the view outside my office building

I sometimes wonder about the direction my life would have taken if I had not changed to the career mode and I had stayed in BC.  Would I have been an artist?  or an organic farmer?  both have been deep desires of mine, pushed aside because I hear a practical (probably it's my mother's) voice telling me I couldn't do it.

I'm near retirement now, but sometimes I still just want to get rid of the stuff, quit my job, take the animals and go live on a farm!