wow ..... i have had this feeling for a long time, I just want to pack up my car with just the essentials and hit the road. To where I don't know yet ....! I have spent the last 20 years pursuing simplicity and then minimalisim .... and I just want to get rid of whats left. Not really practicle, because I don't have a lot, but its what in my heart. any sage advice?
Put everything but what will fit in your car into a place you can't get to easily - a separate room or closet or something. Live with what is still out for awhile (week? month?). Sit down with it again and see if there is more to put away that you haven't used, see what you needed enough to go pull back out. Make those changes and live with that awhile. Rope off a smaller section of your living area and just live in that. See what works and what you end up needing after all.
When I've moved I found I actually used enough to go out of my way to reacquire: a microwave, a towel of some kind to wipe up spills/dry off things, some cleaning products (even living in a hotel, as I prefer to clean my place myself), a sponge, a coffee-maker and coffee in my room (restaurate downstairs operates on Honduran time...). Oh, and an alarm clock with 2 alarms, as I had opted for an older, smaller one of my Mom's and ended up having her send my larger one I can see without glasses and the two alarms. Sometimes it's the little things...
After the experiment you may know if it's the smaller amount of stuff/living area or the 'going' that you crave.
Bad spellers of the world, UNTIE!
formerly known as Paula P
This is what I would do also as I'm not attached to anything. Maybe just take a box of photos and that's it. I actually LIKE having very little and not being attached to things. I find it extemely freeing. I never worry about my things - stolen, fire, flood - don't care if it's all gone. I like knowing that if I ever wanted to just go (which i always do :-)!), I just pack a backpack, drop my little box of personal papers and photos at my sister's and everything else can go. Very freeing!Originally Posted by Water&Air
Last edited by Spartana; 7-22-11 at 1:45pm.
I took a load of stuff to Salvation Army the other day and as I dropped it off I realized that the amount I donated was MORE than the total amount of stuff I brought when I moved cross-country.
It made me sad to think of all the money I've wasted. What does my family need? Anymore than we take on a camping trip? Why do I have so much stuff?
I'll never be a minimalist, but I want to have LESS.
It is interesting to me how packing up and escaping is a very common theme, especially among women. I think I read a book once, Ladder of Years?, about a woman who just sort of disappeared from her safe but boring life into another existence...carrying only a suitcase.
Last Friday morning at 4:42 the buildingfire alarm started blaring. There's no one at the front desk to call and ask about it, so I dressed in the clothes I planned to wear that day and went down to look. Seeing a police van and a fire truck, I went back upstairs and gathered:
-cell phone and charger
-purse (for money and ID)
-laptop and power cord
-the novel I'm currently reading
I looked around and did not see even ONE other thing I cared enough about to carry it out of the building, even though I have duffel bags handy and planned to take the elevator. [I know, not in a fire. Tell my knee.] In case there really was a fire, I left the door unlocked so the fire department wouldn't feel a need to break it down.
Which leads me to my current theory that the future holds a time when people will not be so closely associated with a fixed home as we are now. The "homed" or maybe “land-homed” or “wired-down” may be as unusual as the "homeless" are now. I've been reading "AnOptimist's Tour of the Future", which includes discussion of new solar technology composed of a flexible solar film with built-in energy storage capacity that can be installed on windows and potentially generate enough powerfor that one home or RV to not need to connect to electricity delivered by wires.
Neo-nomadic hunter-gatherers, hunting a good parking spot for the solar van, and gathering over coffee at McDonald's?
One by one the wires that tie us to fixed habitations are being snapped. Our physical space needs are also changing. That night I took all of my information and communications needs, as well as photos,music, games, family history, resume, writings, several Kindle or Word format books including two versions of the Bible, and financial records, with me when I left. That used to be a lot of physical stuff that needed physical house-room. Now I can carry it in a laptop case.
I also reflected that, after the teeth in my mouth and the car in the parking lot, the laptop is the most expensive thing that I own. Next is the refrigerator, which I am SO not rescuing, fire or not!
Turns out the alarm was due to a plumbing break, luckily on the first floor and in a utility area, so there won't be $250,000 of damage like there was last time.
In retrospect I think that if I had been more awake I would have taken the little container of family jewelry (nothing dollar-valuable). And more clothes and shoes, just to avoid having to replace them if it had been an actual fire.
first, our neighbors just moved and the moving company needed two days to pack and two days to load the giant truck, it was mindblowing. Old office furniture that was stored in the basement, all kinds of junk they paid to move. Then we just went on a bike trip and carried everything we needed for ten days. I did not feel that there was much more we needed and I did not miss the internet, news, tv etc. While we were gone a screen blew out of a window and one of our neighbors thought we might have had an attempted break in so checked the house, but it was just the wind.
When I told him that being so unencumbered made me really think about what I really needed to live, and there was little of value I would take if I needed to bug out. We already scanned all of our personal papers and photos and copies are with the kids so they would be easy to replace, and we wear our wedding rings. Besides that everything is replaceable.
The last twenty years we have rarely bought anything brand new, we let others take the depreciation hit. Except for some hand crafted furniture in our house, everything could be cheaply replaced.
I think that if I was going to move I would short term rent a storage unit and pack up everything I thought I could live without in it. If you need it, you can easily get it but chances are you would end your time with a trip to the local charity donation center with all the stuff. Way cheaper than paying to move it.
Shadowmoss I think you hit the nail on the head with your comment: "After the experiment you may know if it's the smaller amount of stuff/living area or the 'going' that you crave". I have been doing what you described, without really knowing it ... make sense? And it comes down to do I stay or do I go .... thank you.
Thank you all for the feedback, it really is great to be in the company of like minded folks. I have lurked for a long time and really appreciate the conversation on this site.
Water&Air
It's funny that what I've packed up to ship home is the 'middle' stuff. What I 'need' I'm keeping with me. What I'll get rid of I'm keeping here for now but will get rid of when I leave this country. What I don't really need right now but don't want to get rid of will be approx. 100 sq ft of stuff shipped back to the US for storage. To add to the stuff already in storage. I'll be revisiting that stuff over the next few years. sigh. Like I said, the storage unit(s) buy me time. No relation to the value of the stuff.
Bad spellers of the world, UNTIE!
formerly known as Paula P
Oh Zoebird...that sounds wonderful...can I do that at 37??? : )
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