miss minimalist

(Photo: ejhogbin)

Most of us spend our lives in a constant state of accumulation.

It all starts when we leave our parents’ homes, and start acquiring the “stuff” to lead independent lives. What begins with a couple of plates, milk crates, and linens in college evolves into furniture, cookware, tableware, and decorative items when we get our first apartments. From then on, it’s a continual process of adding and upgrading as our abodes grow larger, and our lives more complex.

What’s more, we’re cheered on along the way. Our acquisitions are encouraged by advertisers, and celebrated by family and friends. We’re given housewarming parties and shower gifts, and congratulated when we purchase a new TV or living room set. It’s almost as if our stuff becomes the measure of our lives, with “more and better” meaning we’re moving in the right direction.

Which makes it all the more interesting when you decide to do the opposite.

Before my husband and I moved overseas, we decided to get rid of our stuff, rather than move or store it (see My Minimalist Story, Part 1: A Clean Slate). We’d been living together since college, so our possessions represented our entire history together, from our first apartment to our current house.

What had taken over a decade to accumulate, we had one month to purge. Things we had coveted, pondered over, saved up for, shopped for, and excitedly brought home. Things that reflected our interests, tastes, travels, and activities. Things we’d bought to celebrate holidays, birthdays, and anniversaries. We’d slowly woven this tapestry of stuff, telling the story of our lives, and now we had to unravel it.

When we told others what we were doing, it was clear we’d upset the natural order of things. Though we had the support of our closest friends and family, many people couldn’t comprehend why we’d want to get rid of the things “we’d worked a lifetime for” (we’re not that old). Others wrote us off as flighty, eccentric, or a little crazy.

No matter—my husband and I dove into the project with enthusiasm. We split the Craigslist duties, and hardly needed to consult each other on individual items. We knew instinctively the very few things that were special to us; everything else could go without regrets. If one of us wavered, the other would chant, “non-attachment, non-attachment.” The experience was nothing short of cathartic.

Here’s the room-by-room breakdown of our Great Unraveling:

Kitchen. We purged everything, save for our sporks, titanium travel cups, a corkscrew, my husband’s favorite knife, and two masu (sake cups) from Japan. We donated, or gave away, every plate, pot, pan, appliance, and utensil—they were simply too heavy and unwieldy to be worth shipping.

Bathroom. We disposed of everything, except the toiletries we decided to take with us. No sense in shipping towels or shower caddies!

Living room. We gave away decorative items, and sold our TV, stereo system, and all furniture except for two pieces—one impossible, the other too costly, to replace. (If you’re curious, the survivors were the sofa and chair in the photo that accompanies Farewell to My Minimalist House.) This was a tough decision—we didn’t really want to keep anything, but we knew we’d regret disposing of them.

Office. We sold our desks, chairs, and bookshelves, as well as all computer equipment except our laptops and a backup hard drive. We gave away (or otherwise disposed of) every last pen, paper clip, rubber band, envelope, file folder, and miscellaneous item in our overflowing stationery supply box. (In hindsight, we should have saved a handful of essential office supplies, to avoid having to buy mass quantities of them here.) We digitized our photos, and scanned and/or shredded the majority of our paperwork. We kept two boxes of important documents (taxes, real estate, financial), and allowed ourselves one box each of books.

Bedroom. We disassembled and disposed of our homemade platform bed, donated the bedding, and left the armoire with the house. We ruthlessly purged our closets, editing our wardrobes down to our favorite, most versatile, and most often worn pieces. It was liberating to suddenly have “permission” to get rid of all those things that weren’t quite right. No longer was I obligated to keep stuff that might someday fit again, come back into style, or be used for “dirty work” around the house!

Guest room. We sold the furniture (futon and small table), and donated the bedding.

Basement. We sold, gave away, or left for the new owner all the lawn and garden equipment, tools, and household supplies. We kept only our bikes (mainly because DH’s would be more costly to replace than store/ship).

Those weeks were full of chaos and activity, with a constant stream of friends, family, neighbors, and strangers parading through our house and carting away our possessions. It was like a strange dream. Between purging our stuff, preparing for settlement, packing, and wrapping up things at our jobs, we had little opportunity to consider exactly what was happening.

It wasn’t until the night before closing that the full impact of what we were doing finally hit us. As our voices echoed through the empty rooms, we realized that almost everything we’d ever owned was really gone. No longer would we be coming back to our familiar house, with our familiar furniture, and our familiar stuff. For the next six weeks, we’d be living in highway motels, awaiting our visas—then starting a brand new life in a foreign country. Fortunately, any nervousness we might have felt was drowned out by the excitement, and sheer extraordinariness, of the situation.

We slept on the living room floor that night, our two duffel bags lined up at the door, ready to start our adventure in minimalist living.

(Photo: jurek
d.)

I think every minimalist fantasizes about starting over with a clean slate—it seems a heck of a lot easier than the slow (and sometimes painful) process of decluttering the stuff you’ve accumulated over a lifetime. I for one had been decluttering for years, and still seemed nowhere near my goal of living with just the essentials.

But short of a fire, natural disaster, or other tragedy (which nobody wants to experience), there are few circumstances that would suddenly separate you from the bulk of your possessions.

Recently, I received my unique (and possibly once-in-a-lifetime) opportunity for a clean slate: an overseas move.

My husband and I were thrilled about the prospect; for years, we’d dreamt of experiencing life in another country. But reality quickly set in: what on earth would we do with all our stuff?

We had no desire to take all our possessions with us; in fact, the cost of moving them probably would have exceeded their value. Furthermore, we had no address (we’d be looking for a place to live upon arrival), no idea of how long we’d be there, and the thought of dragging hundreds of tidbits across the sea seemed ridiculously burdensome.

Our other option was to put everything into a public storage unit, to be dealt with later. However, that almost seemed like cheating (or at least procrastinating). How could we start a new life, when all the trappings of our old one were bundled up in a warehouse, waiting for us to come “home?” We knew if we kept it, our stuff would continue to weigh on us from across the ocean.

So from the time our house went under contract, we had one month to empty its entire contents. And for an aspiring minimalist like myself, what a euphoric month that was!

Don’t get me wrong, selling things on Craigslist is no walk in the park. It takes a lot of effort to photograph your stuff, describe it, and answer an unending stream of emails about it. Not to mention sell it at a price far less than what you paid. But it was worth every bit of the hassle. That continual parade of buyers lifted the burden of our possessions from us, one-by-one, giving us the freedom (and a little extra cash) to embark on our new adventure.

In the end, my husband and I were each left with one bag (to carry with us), two boxes of books and clothes (to be shipped later), and a handful of items in long-term storage (more on those later).

I only wish I’d had the time to provide a post-by-post account of the experience—but as it turns out, there was little time for blogging (or much of anything else) with precious few weeks to purge, pack, and plan a life in a foreign country. But that’s okay; I’m not sure I could have effectively expressed the utter joy of seeing our bar stools, coffee table, or weed whacker walk out the door for the last time—at least in a way that wouldn’t get me institutionalized.

So over the next few weeks, I’ll provide my post-mortem account of what it was like to get rid of everything, and live my minimalist dream—residing in hotels, with all my possessions in a single duffel bag. That’ll catch you up to where I am now. Stay tuned.