One of my friends told me recently that she enjoys moving. We were having drinks, and I wondered if she had a few drinks before we met. "Wait...are you drunk?" She explained that it was cathartic to pack up all her belongings, to take stock of what she owned, and then unpack it all in a new location. All the possibilities and potentials of having a new home, a fresh perspective, and her old things in new surroundings gave her a renewed sense of purpose and meaning.
Son of a biscuit, I thought. After such a deep interpretation of moving I felt like anything I said in response was going to be shallow. If I confessed my loathing and burning hatred for packing all of my life belongings and then having to move them in 5-to-25 pound boxes was going to sound whiney. So I responded with, "Moving gives me debilitating anxiety and makes me realize that I own way too much stuff for just one person and, yet, not enough for one person as old as I am." We sat there in silence for a few minutes, and then I pulled out two koozies from my purse for our beer, as if to emphasize that my stuff was spilling out of my place and into my purse.
I'm in the process of moving into my boyfriend's four bedroom, three bath home that sits on four acres of land. I currently live in a 650-square foot apartment. I don't own a lot of stuff. I've never liked knick knacks, and most of my items serve a functional purpose. With my plan to sell most of my furniture, it looks like all of my world possessions will occupy a 15x15 foot area in his basement. Even that feels like too much "stuff". Do I really need to keep that tub of scrapbooks that I made when I was in third and fourth grades? How many vases does one person really need, even if they serve a different purpose in the spring (obviously, flowers) versus fall (wine corks) versus Christmas (Xmas bulbs)? If I walked away from it all, I don't think I'd miss any of. I might have a tinge of regret for some of the sentimentally valued items -- such as the jelly bean jar that sat on my grandparents' countertop when I was growing up or my grandmothers' teacups -- but I'm sure I would quickly recover. Perhaps I should feel a remorse that, physically, my existence is summed up in roughly a 15-foot area, but I'm really more relieved. When I die, there will be less for my family to deal with, less to sort through and have someone else bear that guilty feeling of tossing away an item that they thought meant a great deal to me, when it really probably didn't.
So I'm continuing to take a critical eye to what I pack. Maybe I can get that area down to 10x10, or maybe even 8x6. The minimalist side of me is seeping tears of joy at that prospect.
