From Packrat to Minimilist: Changing Perspectives Toward "less is More."

I enjoy my world. Many people come in to my house and ask me where all my stuff is? Jokingly, I say "it all walked away in the divorce." The truth, however is often told in jest. The hardest part I found during my life, separating from "things" was the sentimentality attached. Over the years, probably due to necessity and trauma, I have broken the possession chains and am no longer stuck to a place and time.

When I was younger I was a total packrat. As I child I wanted to part with nothing. I can put that on two events during that time, as I can still remember how I felt when it was taking place and I was around 5-6 years old. 1. my dad built me a sandbox, but had to tear it down about a year or so later due to the elements and it began to rot. When my mom and dad talked to me about it I remember crying and sitting on it and calling it blueberry. Not too long after I asked my mom where a yarn knit lion stuffed animal was, and she said she had gotten rid of it. At that point, my stuff was mine, and had to be kept. I do not blame my mom nor my dad for either of the two situations, as my mom was always a get-rid-of- it-kind of person, and my dad a very organized packrat. They just happened to occur during a developmental stage where a child both begins to truly worry and becomes protective of their things.

So fast forward about 10 years.

I found out I was pregnant, at 16. I can't begin to tell you what a mind altering thing that is. I did not know how my family was going to react, I thought they would kick us out, and I would have to leave EVERYTHING behind. Now, to give my family some credit here- I (and he) lost my virginity and ended up pregnant. I had slept with one person, starting on his birthday, and additionally maybe two or three times total over our relationship past that date. What our families did wrong, is they trusted two naive, miss-informed and/or lack of informed teenagers, alone together for long periods of time. That is all. We made our bed, and only I had to lie in it. And it turned out fine, but making room for two of us in one room- I had to part ways with stuff, and I gladly did so to make room for the items that made my child feel secure in a daunting world.

Fearing that I was going to leave all of the "things" I was attached to, I began to purge. It was slow, it was agonizing. Talking one day to my grandmother, after my "organized packrat grandfather" passed away, she said he made sure she could never leave that house because of all of the stuff in the basement- she would never be able to move and would have to die in that house…..This conversation then put mortality to things. What happens to your possessions when you die? Do I want to be remembered by the crap in my basement? No, I did not. So thus began an 8 year transition in to freedom from possessions.

I got married shortly after graduating high school, and moving out was a nightmare of carried crap. We moved in together, bought furniture, and brought all of our stuff. 1000 sq. feet sure fills up quickly. During that first year, We lost our jobs when the place we worked for closed abruptly. We began to sell some of our stuff, and take other stuff to goodwill, take stuff to local consignment shops. Anything to make a little money. We then moved in to his mother's flat. The agreement was we would fix it up, schedule the work and get it back to livable condition, and pay rent to her once we were back on our feet. This would be a 2-5 year process, and we would be out of there so she could rent it out for market value then. We packed up our stuff, gutted our possessions, and moved. 1100 square feet, and less stuff than we came to the first apartment with. It felt pretty good!

Over the next three years we had a rummage sale every summer, we consigned stuff, donated stuff, and I scanned and uploaded all photos, paper documents, and music from cd's, to the point we had a cyclical and seasonal routine. I called it my "mode of efficiency." Because of this process we were able to save up enough money to buy a house and fix it up before we moved in. 1205 square feet and moved with less than we had moving in to location 2 which was less than location.

This process continued, less the rummage sale. There was less to clean and dust, less to collect germs, and the house always looked bright and open and clean. I always got a feeling of exhilaration when I would go in my kitchen and I had empty cabinets. 5 cabinets were in use of the 11. I owned a house with built-in's everywhere, from closets to drawers; just random pockets in the house. It made me so happy when they were empty. I felt free. I felt like we could go anywhere at any time and our house and stuff would not hold us back. And then- less than 1 year after buying the house, the world around us changed and lead to the ultimate demise of our life we built together. What came of the divorce; in the most general of terms- he took the stuff, and I took the kids.

This being said, the day he moved "his" stuff out of the house, I could not believe what it looked like when I came home. The house was basically empty. The furniture that stayed, were things that really were a pain in the behind to move, so to him they were not worth the trouble. He even took the pizza cutter; which was a funny thing as I did not realize that until I went to make pizza a few months later…. What amazed me, when I thought I would have a feeling of loss, or anger that my stuff was now his stuff and was gone, was I felt free. Free to change, to build my life fresh and new, to teach my kids a huge and valuable lesson about materialism, and attachment. We lived the next 2.5 years without a TV, without a dvd player, without a stereo system, without gaming systems, etc. We had a radio with weather-band in the event of issues, which he later realized he did not grab, and asked me for it. We sold the house, which made me sad because I love it and the garden I had built. And we moved in to a 2800 square foot loft apartment in the city, with less stuff than I had ever owned in my life and there were three of us.

The funniest thing was on moving day. I called in movers, and I was asked if they should send a small or a medium truck, as the size of the house fell in the questionable area. I said to send in the small truck. We only filled up 3/4 of the small truck. It took the movers less than 4 hours to move us in full.

To this day, nearly 3 years removed I still have very little. I have replaced the TV, I have a few living room chairs now- but we still cycle in and cycle out. We clean out the house 1 time per season and donate or consign the stuff. I sell stuff on eBay and amazon, and the cool part- we could move quickly and easily again and still. My kids can ride their bikes through the apartment, we can play tag, and do cartwheels and hand stands and play.

I like my life this way, my kids do as well. When we go shopping, they are able to distinguish a want from a need, and although sometimes they choose the want side (they are kids and that is what kids do), they at least have the mechanisms in place to give it some thought and the repercussions of their actions a second look before committing to purchase. They would rather I save up money to take the day off of work to take them someplace, or out to dinner at a fun restaurant, than buy them stuff.

Not to say that there is not stuff we want we just can't afford, or that we do not have times we blow the budget out of the water, but we are able to appreciate what we do have, what the costs of living are , what a need is, what a want is, and that we are and should be happy with whom and what we are-not be loved because we have a ton of stuff. A house full of stuff does not indicate a full and fulfilling life.