2002-10-01 - 10:54 p.m.
I took a vacation day on Monday. Because I knew that after all the weekend excitement I would need some down time. That's the funny thing about introverts. No matter how much we love people and enjoy being around them, it is always a drain on our mental and emotional resources. And I know myself well enough by now to know that after a whole weekend of socializing, I would need to be alone with my thoughts for a while.
So I just drifted around the house like a quiet little ghost for most of the day, after Skootie went to work. Did some laundry. Put some things away. Cleaned off my desk. Played my guitar. Looked out the window.
Maybe it was some reaction to the "gear intensive" camping experience, or maybe it was just spending the day in this house still filled with boxes from the notorious notebook project, but half way through the day I started thinking about how much STUFF I/we own and how tired I am of all of it. I feel a de-junking phase coming on.
My life has been a tug-of-war between two extremes. One is the desire to acquire and own things, and the other is the wish to live simply and minimally.
On the one hand I love my books and music and electronics. I lived "simply" out of poverty for so many long art student/ single parent years and did without most of what I wanted. So I have really enjoyed being able to buy the books I want to read, and nice shoes. (When I first started making over survival wages, the first thing I did was buy shoes, because I had worn the same ones for three years. I used to feel so rich just looking at all the shoes in my closet.) We have spent a lot of money on home improvements and decorating, too, because it is important to us to have a house that reflects our interests and tastes. And it isn't a minimal sort of style.
But then sometimes I notice how much time and energy I am devoting to the care and arranging of all the STUFF. The endless searching through packed drawers and closets when I want to find something, and finding things I didn't even remember owning in the process. The endless devising of organizational strategies which would not even be needed if there was less to store. I realize that I (like most people, probably) really don't use all that stuff. I use my favorite things. And the dozen other similar things with minor problems just sit there taking up space. Yet we always live as though some terrible disaster is going to wipe out our good stuff and then the second string stuff will be pressed into service. But it never comes.
I like the idea, the philosophy of living a life with minimal material possessions. I would like to think of myself as a person who could do that. I have whole fantasies about living in a cabin in the woods with just what I need to survive and a few books to study. The culture of consumerism really angers me and I try to resist it. But without moving to that cabin in the woods, it is difficult. In order to resist, you have to be able to tell needs from wants. You have to be able to convince yourself that enough is good enough, even if the media and every advertising message says it isn't.
We have a closet the size of a small room. It has shelves lining one wall and a long hanger bar on the other. It is packed with clothes. Or it was until last night. After spending several hours shuffling through things and ruminating about my relationship with STUFF, I had to start someplace. The clothes closet. Suddenly all of those clothes I have been hanging on to just looked ridiculous. There were things I was saving in case I lost a lot of weight, that I didn't even like any more. There were the dresses with drooping hems, and the pants with frayed knees. There were the miniskirts that made me self conscious ( "Someone should TELL her!") and the sweaters that were too clingy. I started pulling it all off the hangers and piling it in the middle of the floor. In the end I had filled three large trash bags with clothes to get rid of. In the closet, my remaining clothes on hangers could actually hang on the rod without touching each other.
I have given things away before, but never have I done such a dramatic and ruthless weeding out. Everything I don't wear, even things I've kept for sentimental reasons, went into the bag. It feels incredibly good. I feel lighter already.
I PLEDGE: to only add things that are exactly what I want. No more buying things just because they are on sale. No more buying things for some abstract notion of myself.
I am thinking I want to focus more on having experiences rather than having things in my life. And I want the things I do have in my life to be the right things. The truth is: STUFF is pretty easy to come by. The trick is not hanging on to anything that doesn't make me happy.
�
