here goes the country A through K rack
the Wayside. lately, it's been full of my off-castings. priorities rearranging at a searing pace. my prediction is that it's only going to increase in the next few months. I just spent the afternoon figuring out what I need to do to get my house on the market by mid-April, how to advertise it myself ('cause I can't afford a realtor), and how the hell I'm going to fit a house full of random life trappings into a small ann arbor apartment. not that my house is that big, but the shit you need to own a house is ri-fucking-diculous.
it's a zillion times harder to compress your stuff than to spread it all around. it's a similar concept to when you have to move and you have to figure out how to fit all your stuff in the u-haul truck. that part of your brain that you trained with endless hours of tetris rises from its slumber to visualize three-dimensionally and rearrange boxes, couches, mattresses, and the like into a compact, finite space.
so, with the daunting task of compressing my physical life baggage, I have realized the bliss that will come with simplifying. selling stuff, giving it away, throwing it out if absolutely necessary. how much stuff does one person really need? why do I still have old reel-to-reel tape sitting in my closet when I sold my reel-to-reel two years ago? simplifying will be good. stripping down a few layers closer to the essential elements.
occasionally, I amuse myself with the exercise of mentally paring down my belongings until I get down to a manageable level. thinking about what I could do without, what I would get rid of before other items. furniture? gone. clothes? really, you could do with just a few. one pair of shoes. do I really need six rolls of wrapping paper? please. so, mentally, I would smash the dishes on the sidewalk, give the clothes away, put all my music into an ipod, grab a few essential pictures, hop on my bike and ride away. I'd miss my guitar, but they make cool little backpacker guitars. maybe that'd do.
after mentally tossing off 98% of my material belongings, I always felt quietly peaceful and secretly proud. now I get to see if my pride was ill-placed: a true test. can I excise my internal material girl? my goal is to do away with half of the stuff I own (by weight? volume? not sure). we'll see how well I do.
it's a zillion times harder to compress your stuff than to spread it all around. it's a similar concept to when you have to move and you have to figure out how to fit all your stuff in the u-haul truck. that part of your brain that you trained with endless hours of tetris rises from its slumber to visualize three-dimensionally and rearrange boxes, couches, mattresses, and the like into a compact, finite space.
so, with the daunting task of compressing my physical life baggage, I have realized the bliss that will come with simplifying. selling stuff, giving it away, throwing it out if absolutely necessary. how much stuff does one person really need? why do I still have old reel-to-reel tape sitting in my closet when I sold my reel-to-reel two years ago? simplifying will be good. stripping down a few layers closer to the essential elements.
occasionally, I amuse myself with the exercise of mentally paring down my belongings until I get down to a manageable level. thinking about what I could do without, what I would get rid of before other items. furniture? gone. clothes? really, you could do with just a few. one pair of shoes. do I really need six rolls of wrapping paper? please. so, mentally, I would smash the dishes on the sidewalk, give the clothes away, put all my music into an ipod, grab a few essential pictures, hop on my bike and ride away. I'd miss my guitar, but they make cool little backpacker guitars. maybe that'd do.
after mentally tossing off 98% of my material belongings, I always felt quietly peaceful and secretly proud. now I get to see if my pride was ill-placed: a true test. can I excise my internal material girl? my goal is to do away with half of the stuff I own (by weight? volume? not sure). we'll see how well I do.
random bits cobbled together by j-dub
2 Comments:
I can definitely relate. Slowly, through the past few years I've been trying to simplify disparate elements of my life, one by one. Now I'm actually moving, and I have the opportunity to slash and burn mightily. It helps that I'm only moving a little more than a mile away, so I can take my time with things. But I'm moving into a much smaller space. Almost everything I own fits into a two-room bedroom, with the exceptions of my car and my bike, and even the bike could fit if I wanted it there. This shouldn't be too bad. For living in a two-floor, full attic, full basement home for six years, I really don't have much stuff. I feel for you.
wow. good luck with the unloading and putting the house on sale. my life the last year or so has been unintentionally pared down of belongings. and while it's nice to feel like i’m moving lightly through the world, i do miss seeing my books up on shelves around me, though.
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