My whole life I have been surrounded by ‘stuff’. My kryptonite is books, but I am a hoarder
and so have plenty of knick-knacks, craft supplies, pens and notebooks and
things I collect. As I was growing up I
had hundreds of books on my shelf (many of which are still sitting on my
bookcase in my old room) and I wasn’t the only one. Every room in our house
houses books, and at least two of them hold my dad’s C.D. collection (which was
well into the thousands last time I checked).
This accumulation of stuff was just part of the scenery; I didn’t
realise just how much I had until I moved out.
During my first year at university I only had a tiny room to
house my life and so the majority stayed back with my parents. In my second and third years I had slightly
more space and storage options in the house I lived in with ‘friends’.
It wasn’t until I moved in with Chris about 2 years ago,
that I finally figured out why I was still surrounded by ‘stuff’. (I should
probably mention here that Chris is by far the greatest minimalist I’ve ever
known which is probably why I started re-evaluating.) I knew I wanted to cut down, but I found it
increasingly difficult to get rid of anything (like I said, I have always been
a hoarder), until I realised that I was evaluating myself by my stuff. I didn’t want to get rid of anything as
everything symbolized something about who I am or who I used to be.
It wasn’t until this breakthrough that I finally understood
what was holding me back. I had made my
stuff crucial to my identity and so I didn’t want to lose the physical
manifestations of my identity. Understanding this, I finally started to accept
that my stuff is not me. Yes, a lot of
it does represent who I am, but not all of it is necessary in my life. I was
feeling stressed and burdened by the physical clutter around me. Since my ‘breakthrough’ my mindset started to
change and I knew that I need the space (physical and mental) to make way for
who I am becoming, which has allowed me to start relieving myself of the
‘stuff’.
I am not a minimalist. I don’t plan on becoming a minimalist. I expect I will always have quite a bit of
stuff (this is a natural result of being into many crafts and wanting to try so
many different things). But over the
past year, I have cut down my stuff by about half (that’s a very rough
estimation). I know that I still have a
long way to go – packing to move last time and having to decide what to ‘store’
at my parent’s and what to bring with me definitely proved that – but I am
looking forward to the journey that not feeling tied down will give me the
chance to live.
If you are on a similar path of decluttering and reclaiming
your space, you might enjoy reading Rachel’s blog ‘The Minimalist Mom’. And of course, share your experiences in the
comments.
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