Is less the new more? When I got divorced I moved what I could into my little apartment and rented a storage unit. I think the unit was 4x8x8 and I had it stuffed to the top. Part of my feelings of security was in the stuff shoved into that room. When I moved into the next apartment, I had a little more room, so part of the stuff came out of storage. And so it went until I was able to afford a place big enough to keep most of it inside with a very small storage area on the deck. Throughout the years there were some things I left behind; 7′ lit Christmas tree, half my patio furniture, and a few other items here and there.
When I moved into my last apartment with the little storage room, I realized I probably didn’t need to keep ALL the Christmas decorations I had been toting around. I had never had all the things out for the last 5 years. I also whittled down my books to a mere 6 boxes.
I bought my house in August of 2015. It was a LONG way from move in so I had 2 months to get my things ready to move. BUT, I also had a lot of work to do at the new place. My new house was twice as big as my apartment….wow, I could stack all my sh*t inside! My mom came to help me get moved and she was shocked how much stuff I had stashed in my apartment. In the new place, it looked like it had doubled. It was spread out all over the place. When I moved into that apartment, I moved on Friday and had company over on Sunday. Everything had been put away quickly.
This move was different. I still had a lot of work to do before everything could find a real home. I had stuff stacked in the basement, in the living room, in the bedrooms. The only places that were ready to roll were the kitchen and bathroom. I was planning on renting out the largest bedroom so that one was perfect and clutter free. The rest….disaster! A month in my house it looked like Goodwill and Home Depot both exploded inside. It was a crazy time but I found places for everything (all those boxes of stuff). I was going to rent the garage out, so I didn’t stack anything in there. I rented my basement out also. I had a 2076 sq.ft. house but I used 1,236 sq.ft. I shared living space with another person also. I had the equivalent of one bedroom to myself and a bunch of stuff stored in the other sloping ceiling room and storage room.
The first year in the house I updated the basement; it’s rented. Second year, I anticipated a remodel upstairs. I had all this space with a sharply pitched roof so the space you could stand in it was very little. I had a bunch of stuff stored in the area that you had to crawl to. The remodel created the need to downsize the stuff. My garage was rented and I knew I had too much stuff. I had to mentally let go of whatever had kept me moving the stuff for 7 years. Was it a sense of security, of not wanting to let go of the person I used to be, or not giving up the happy or painful memories that those things carried?
Five large tote bins of fabric….first to go. Hard, yes! Gradifing, yes! Then I went through my shoes; 10 pairs gone. Half my clothes, gone. Tons of other things. Last Christmas my daughter hosted Christmas in her house for the first time. I took 90% of the decorations and left them there. Will a couple of the things ever make it back into my house? There’s a 50/50 chance.
The remodel is almost complete. I haven’t looked at most of the stuff that has been in the garage for over 6 months. It is easy to say that I probably don’t need most of it. It will be harder to let go of it. Several boxes are filled with pictures of my kids and keepsakes. The pictures will be getting digitized when the rain starts again and each of the kids will get a disk and their share of the hard copies. The keepsakes I’ll go through and see if any of them can make their way into the light so I can look at them. If the kids want some of the items, they can store them. I will take pictures of some items then donate them.
The thought of less stuff and more space does make me feel good. Less stuff is more mental clarity, more physical space, more emotional relaxation, and more spiritual trust. Less is more!