In retrospect, I think it’s a bit funny that I wrote a post after the first 100 items I decluttered, like that would be a sizeable portion of the project. Quite the opposite–the more I decluttered, the more I saw that should go! I stopped keeping track after the next 100 items. I would estimate that I’m now somewhere between 400-500 items gone, and MANY more still to go.
After getting rid of obvious trash, irreparably broken things, or things that hadn’t been touched in years, there’s a whole other category of stuff that I’m slogging through now. It’s things that are still pretty and/or useful, just not to me.
Once I realized that the real purpose of minimalism is to limit your energy expenditure on stuff–physical in the sense of having fewer possessions to maintain, and mental in the sense of eliminating choice–it became much easier to part with things. For example, I had a popcorn maker I hadn’t used in years. I’ve developed a corn intolerance, and Eric prefers stovetop popcorn. There’s nothing wrong with the popcorn maker, but why own it if I’ll never use it? For nostalgia’s sake? I used it almost every night in college (guilty pleasure!) but I don’t need the physical item to keep the fond memory of eating popcorn in my bathrobe while chatting with Eric and our friend M.
Similarly, I don’t need three tea kettles or a bunch of nearly-new clothes that don’t fit properly. I don’t need to keep toys my kids don’t care for–even if I plan to have more kids in the future, I don’t want to store “maybe” things for the indeterminate future. I don’t need the sentimental papers and toys my mom dropped off a few years ago that are hiding in our storage room; I don’t even remember what they are, so they obviously aren’t important to me.
At this point, we’ve also started to think about the BIG things. The size of our house. Whether or not having a big yard–or a yard at all–is worth it to us. The number of cars we own. The amount of money we (have to) spend on healthcare in a year. Which, to be blunt, was shocking last year: $17,000 between premiums and our out-of-pocket costs. Yeah, $17k; that’s not a typo. It was insane. There are so many things we could do with $17k other than pay for doctor’s appointments. Or maybe Eric could just make $17k less and have more time to spend with us.
I used to hear people talk about minimalism as a cure-all, and it didn’t seem like one to me. But when the physical decluttering goes hand-in-hand with the mindset shift, we can see a whole new future for ourselves full of the things we love–and lighter without the things we don’t. I can’t to see where we go.
xx Claire