why minimalism?

My introduction to minimalism was in 2016. I was living in a 1,600 square foot house and had hired a decorator to help make it look like me. Part of this process was shopping at several stores and buying decorative items I liked with the intent of returning what didn’t work. {Side note: I’ve never been a happy shopper – I’d rather spend four hours running 26.2 miles than shopping.} Throughout this process, I just felt icky. I wasn’t even shopping at high-end stores–we’re talking TJ Maxx, Hobby Lobby and Gordmans. My house looked darling but I was left feeling like it was too much house with too much stuff that served no purpose. I stumbled upon a book called The More of Less by Joshua Becker. Anyone in the minimalist realm knows that name! It really spoke to me and I knew what path I was meant to head down.

In 2017, I was preparing to sell my house in Illinois and move to Colorado. I started going through my belongings, room by room. Since I didn’t perceive most of the stuff I was purging to be of much value and I wasn’t in dire straits financially, items got categorized into three categories: gift / donate / trash. (If you have nicer stuff than I do, you could add sell to that list.) I had the most fun with the gift category. Finding the perfect recipient for an item that was no longer useful to me brought me joy! I had around 1,000 baseball cards from my tomboy childhood and mailed those to my nephew who was very into baseball. While Goodwill seems like the easiest solution for donate, it was also fun to find more specific causes too. For example, I found a young student that had started collecting gowns for high school students who couldn’t afford to buy dresses for prom, homecoming, etc. I had several bridesmaid dresses and even my old prom dress that found a good home there and I truly hope are being re-purposed. Finally, the trash category–this doesn’t mean I loaded up a landfill with my junk. I had paper tax returns dating back to 1996–I digitized all tax returns and shredded hard copies with the exception of recent years. Being single with no children, I discarded childhood mementos that I had no sentiment toward. Even if you do have heirs, will they really want to sort through drawings from every grade of your adolescent years? Likely not. My one downfall is photographs–I love looking back through them later, so I did hang on to all photo albums.

When I moved out of the house, I stashed what remained in a storage shed and drove to Colorado with a car full of items to live with indefinitely. I recently returned to my storage shed to look for a coffee bean grinder. While I didn’t find the grinder (maybe it got donated!), I did realize I could likely get rid of half the stuff in that shed. I have lived for almost 2.5 years on that car full of stuff (plus a few added items) and have manged just fine. I think minimalism suits me well!