I think I became a minimalist yesterday…
Okay maybe not a minimalist per say—I still have a ton of
stuff—but a minimalist padawan.
Yesterday, I spent around thirty-six hours throwing stuff away, (with reasonable sleeping and meal breaks). Clothing,
random papers, stuffed animals, magazines, SAT booklets, cosmetics. Everything
that I saw in my room that I haven’t used in a year I stuffed into white
plastic bags. And you know what? I stuffed ten of those bags full—five of them were clothes alone.
The result is invigorating.
I can honestly say I was drowning in stuff. Stuff that I hadn't looked at, let alone touched, in years.
My favorite phrases were, “I’ll use that in a month or two”, “I might need that
sometime in the future”, “I’ll take care of that hole in that sweater someday”. But I never did. And because
of that I had so much useless junk.
Then I found my first minimalist blog. And I found heaven.
I rifled through minimalist blog after blog, looking at the
clean sparse websites, taking in their happiness, their freedom while I was
shackled to the mess that was my room. And I decided to take action.
I wanted a simple task because I wanted to take it one step at a time. A little bit today, a little bit tomorrow. At first I intended to just tackle my growing cosmetics drawer. It was filled to the brim with hair, and skin products and all sort of makeup. I challenged myself to throw the majority of it away, allowing one small makeup bag, and one medium tote for all my skin products, hair tamers, and other beauty needs. I did it under half an hour, with just one rule, once an item hit the bottom of a garbage bag, it wasn’t coming out (aka, no take backs). Once I was done I looked down at my drawer, the space occupied only by the makeup bag and the tote, and felt…relieved. And hungry. Hungry for more of that relief.
I couldn’t stop myself from moving on to another drawer, and
another until I had piled up five bags of stuff, my need for relief overtaking
everything else. Then I decided I wanted to take on the big guy. My closet.
My closet is an old foe. I've spent many years trying to get it
organized, and have it stay that way, but it always seems to revert right back
to its chaotic state. But not this time. I was about to tame the beast. I threw
all the clothes I hadn’t worn in a year on the ground behind me, not daring to
look back at it. By the time I was satisfied and I finally turned around, the
pile was waist high. I was astonished, but looking back at my closet I felt the
same relief as before.
That’s the funny thing. Once I got my room downsized and I
removed all the clutter and nonsense I was able to look at my room and actually enjoy it. I hadn’t noticed that all that stuff was causing me such…anxiety. I
was a nervous wreck and didn’t even know it. But once it was all gone, and I
was able to feel that freedom, the lightness of less stuff weighing me down, I
felt at peace.
I was so elated with my room that my brother caught me sitting on my bed, just staring at it, because I was so amazed (he didn’t hesitate to call me a weirdo, but I saw him carrying garbage bags up to his room).
This is the best thing I could’ve done for myself.
I don’t know the long term impact it will have on me, whether I’m going to
keep getting rid of stuff, or if my room will stay as neat as it is, or even if
I convince the rest of my family to go minimalist, but so far I am loving it.
Here’s to minimalism!
