There’s nothing like moving to show you how much stuff you own. And every time I move, I’m convinced more and more of that stuff is actually junk. Hear me out.
I recently heard someone talk about the concept of “closing loops”.
The vet appointments that need to be made. The loose screw on the cat tree that needs to be tightened. That drawer in the bottom of the fridge with the sticky spot that needs to be scrubbed out. The boxes of letters from childhood friendships that have been moved from closet to closet in one apartment to the next. Friendships that are long gone since we are all different people 20 years later of course. Paperwork that needs to be filed away in organized folders for future reference. The button that needs to be sewn back onto a jacket I haven’t worn since last winter.
The list goes on. There are hundreds of them, to put it mildly.
These tend to fall into two groups. Tasks vs Decluttering.
Little tiny tasks: Clean up that little mess. Tighten that screw. Wipe out the microwave.
Decluttering / Organization: Redo the linen closet organization. Check expiration dates on all spice jars. Go through old keepsake boxes from high school and college. Make the desk surface visible again.
One type is just checking something off the list. The other type tends to take longer and involves getting rid of things. They are all open tabs in my brain. A little line from a song on a continuous loop (ice cream truck style) until they are completed.
The funny thing is while some items on this list are longer tasks (filing away paperwork, sorting through a box of keepsakes I haven’t opened in fifteen years, creating a donate bag for clothes I haven’t worn in the last three years, finding frames for artwork that’s been rolled up in the back of the closet for years, etc), there are actually many tasks that can be done in 30 minutes or less.
Sewing on a button? Tightening a loose screw with an Allen wrench? Scrubbing that sticky spot in the fridge? Some take 30 seconds. And W-O-W does it feel incredible to check one of those off the list. And then I think, Why did it take me so long to do this?
For the Decluttering tasks, they take longer up front, but make such a huge lasting difference, mentally in particular. It’s so nice to have that little to-do crossed off in my mind.
Inevitably though, another takes its place, and I am noticing a common denominator.
I am finding that the more stuff I own, the more loops I have. There are more items to dust. More items to find homes for (things cannot live on the countertop where I see them). More items that remind me of projects I wanted to start and haven’t. Or projects I wanted to finish and haven’t.
Having more items in a smaller space can create an itch you can’t scratch. It’s this constant feeling that you need more (which sounds contradictory but it isn’t). And it is nearly impossible to be content with your life when you feel like that. You think you need more space. But you can’t get more space yet, so you get more stuff to try and manage your smaller space, but instead of more stuff or more space you really just need less stuff.
I’m not a true minimalist, and I’m not saying everything you own should fit into a suitcase. I am saying that as time goes on we consistently accumulate more items. Birthdays happen. Christmas happens. Sales at Target happen. So it makes sense to me that if stuff is gradually trickling in, other stuff needs to be gradually trickling out.
I am overly sentimental toward inanimate objects. My husband would say that’s an understatement. Until about a year ago I had fragments of a pajama top I loved wearing when I was seven. That keepsake box I hadn’t opened in 15 years? It took about an hour and a half to go through it. Most of it was birthday cards I had kept since my fifth birthday (YIKES), keychains that were rusty from neglect, other knick knacks that actually didn’t mean anything, sheets of stickers I had thought were pretty as a kid (and therefore was too scared to use them on anything), and occasional photos of random moments when I was an infant all the way up through high school.
I’ve managed to cart this box around from apartment to apartment (it’s heavy), thinking that I needed it somehow, but when my daughter was born a few months ago I knew I wanted to start a keepsake box for her newborn items, and this seemed like the perfect box to use for it. After staring at the open box for a good 10 minutes I decided that throwing away birthday cards from the last twenty years would not make me a terrible, unfeeling person and throwing out the trinkets that had tarnished beyond recognition would not make me wasteful either. It’s not like I think other people have kept and immortalized birthday sentiments I gave them a month ago let alone 15 years ago. It was birthday well wishes, not a marriage proposal.
I’m not sure when I acquired the belief that keeping stuff made me more of a substantial person. I don’t mean that I kept everything. Of all my siblings I would definitely be the closest to a minimalist. But things that had some sort of sentimental value or memory attached to them? Or something that I loved over a decade ago that isn’t something that takes up my time or interest anymore? I would hesitate to get rid of those. Like I was afraid I would lose part of who I was if I gave those away.
I’m slowly unlearning that, one box at a time.
When the truth is, I think now I prefer all of those things to live internally, rather than displayed externally. Having too much externally displayed makes me feel a little bit like the eight-year-old version of myself is shouting up at the “adultier” adults LOOK AT THIS THING I LOVE OR THIS THING I MADE MYSELF AREN’T I UNIQUE AND GIFTED AND SELECTIVE WITH MY GOOD TASTE??? And they will smile politely and say “WOOOOWWW HOW AMAZINGGGG TELL ME MORE”.
Whereas the times I’ve asked someone about their travels, without seeing ephemera from various travels, and they start with a story about living in Korea for most of their young life, I am astounded and intrigued and gosh please tell me more about that. I am forced to look at them and not their stuff.
I’d rather someone asked me for stories about living in England because they wanted to know me better rather than hang the British flag on my wall as a way of fishing for questions. Especially when that was a decade ago. It was a life-altering, fantastic time in my life that I love talking about AND there are more recent things in my life that I want represented on my walls. Photos of my daughter, to name one. Photos of her grandparents so that she is always familiar with their faces, to name another. My marriage vows. But maybe…maybe less on the walls in general now. Because I want my home to feel like a place where I can relax (less clutter helps me mentally relax), rather than a museum where I am visually assaulted by my own memories constantly.
That box I decided to go through? 90% of that box’s contents ended up in the trash and the few actual keepsake photos of family I relocated to a smaller box that couldn’t become a catch-all for pages with random song lyrics, drawings on tracing paper, or sticker books again.
The weight that lifts when stuff like that goes out the door is huge. Like a whole section of my brain that I forgot about was cleaned out, dusted, and scrubbed with lemon scented wipes. The windows are thrown open. Fresh air is making the curtains flutter. And I’m no worse for it. I haven’t lost anything. I’m better actually.
Less is more.
Loop closed.
I did the same process with my three nightstand drawers earlier this week. We moved suddenly when I was 9 months pregnant and by the following month we had a newborn. After both of those events, the three drawers that make up my current nightstand were stuffed with all kinds of chaos, and last week I finally decided to clean it up. I emptied every drawer, sorted items into piles (purse accessories, lip glosses, hair accessories, baby items, jewelry, trash, etc.) and threw away about a third of it, relocated another third to their rightful places elsewhere, and reassigned the remaining third I actually wanted in the nightstand to the drawers that made the most sense.
Less is more.
Loop closed.
I have the sudden urge to get rid of my random array of coffee mugs and get a matching set of six that I find pretty. My cabinet space (or current lack thereof) would breathe a sigh of relief.
Less is more.
Loop (almost) closed.
I emptied out my two craft baskets that have traveled with my desk to every new apartment we’ve lived in and not once have I used what was inside in all those years. Stickers, ticket stubs, receipts, post-it notes that have lost their stickiness, you name it. For a while over ten years ago I enjoyed putting paper souvenirs like that into little books called Smash Books. It was a sort of messy scrapbooking for keepsakes, and I loved putting those together in high school and some of college. I’ve never touched them again though or continued making new ones, and now, looking through the remaining paper memory scraps I had brought with me year after year, I don’t remember what half of them were from. That’s the point of putting them in a scrapbook. I hear you saying. To remember. Yes. But that’s not a hobby I want to pursue with my time anymore. And that’s okay. The most important things are still in my memory. I don’t need a ticket stub from a bus ride in Italy to remember that trip. The most important memorable parts come spilling out of me when people ask me.
Stuff isn’t bad. Souvenirs aren’t bad. I have a few that I still cherish. Hobbies that require tons of supplies and knick knacks and storage space aren’t bad. But if I haven’t picked up or finished one of those projects in over a year? Five years? Ten years? That space is precious and I will feel so much better if it is dust-free breathing room. Plus I won’t have to MOVE with it again.
Less is more.
Loop closed.
I even started trimming down my bookshelves. This one is particularly difficult for me. I value my intellect and my taste. I’m a bit snobby with my books, I’ll readily admit it. I feel like the books I’ve accumulated are a direct reflection of what has shaped my mindscape over the years. They are part of what makes me think the things I think and enjoy the things I enjoy. Stories shape us. Fiction and nonfiction alike. And I take a deep sense of pride in the quality and quantity of those stories. So getting rid of some of them feel like giving away parts of myself.
However. People always love to romanticize the concept of “growing” as a person. They often think of growth like “getting bigger” which can translate to “acquiring more”. A plant once had one leaf. Now it has four. For us it’s often a measure of success. I could afford one apple. Now I can afford a dozen apples. Or in the book analogy, I used to only read Shakespeare but now I read Shakespeare AND Dickens AND Lewis. But growth also involves pruning for that growth to be sustained. Those first couple of leaves were good and necessary for their time, but now they need to be removed for the real growth of the plant because fruit is coming and that should demand the most resources. I’m choosing to see refining my book collection that way. They are a pain to move from apartment to apartment, which means the ones I keep need to maintain their value. What was once fun and good, might not be how I am entertained now. And giving those away doesn’t mean I didn’t enjoy them back then, only that I wouldn’t as much now. And if they aren’t good enough to recommend to my daughter when she’s that age, I don’t see the point in keeping it. I want to make space for my next favorite that I haven’t read yet. Because, thank the Maker, talented people are still writing gorgeous works of art. And the ones that I keep will be because I truly love them and could see myself rereading them to my girl one day. Or as a personal library for her to peruse at her leisure.
This one is a work in progress. But the loop is closing.
Less is more.
For everything else: clothes, dishes, random household items. I’ve set myself this challenge:
Put three things in the donate bag every week. And when it’s full, donate it.
I’ve already donated my first two bags.
Slowly but surely, it’s feeling more like we live here and not that we are cramped into a smaller than ideal living space. I don’t need more. I am content with what I have. It’s more than we need. And sometimes it takes getting rid of stuff to see that.
And that stuff I got rid of? I’ve already forgotten some of it. The important things are still in me, dancing in the ballroom of my mind. And that makes me feel like a more substantial person in my own body. Kind of like instead of a thin dusting of glitter over every surface of my apartment, the apartment is clean and open and there is space for the hustle and bustle of daily life with an infant, and internally there are diamonds growing infinitesimally, pressurized by my very skin. I am what is growing. Older, yes, but hopefully wiser.
“Ancora imparo (I am still learning).” – Michelangelo, Age 87
