Moving Day

Ian moved in with me this weekend and try as I might, he wouldn't let me apply my new minimalist fantasies to his stuff. Consequently, we had lots of stuff to move!

As I hauled box after box down the stairs, I'd yell things like "Next time I move, I want all my stuff to fit into my car!" or "when I move, I want all my stuff to fit in only three boxes", and so on.

I've only recently noticed that Ian already lives a pretty minimalist lifestyle. Aside from books, cd's, canned goods and exotic "someday" cooking ingredients, he owns relatively few things.

But as I hauled box after box, I wondered how someone who doesn't own much stuff could still fill an entire moving truck. It got me thinking about how some stuff can add up to too much stuff pretty quickly.

While I've actively avoided making rules or deadlines for my minimalist journey, I'd be silly not to take away a few lessons from this weekend.

I think in an ideal world, I'd like to be able to fit everything I own into my car. I'm not sure I could actually go any smaller because I'm not willing to give up some of my hobbies at this point. Still, I feel so free when I think about my tiny car packed with only a few boxes! I could go anywhere and all it would take me would be a day of packing. How absolutely liberating!

But then I think of all the stuff I'd have to get rid of and I start to feel panicky.

To fight this, I've come up with a few schemes for getting rid of stuff gradually and hopefully by next summer I'll have reduced my stuff by half or more. Maybe I won't be able to pack it all into my car but it'll be a great start.