Psycho

My freshman year I spent three days straight packing. It was stressful and horrible. I gave away and threw away a good portion of my stuff. I had 5 boxes jammed full of stuff to put in storage. I had 3 stuffed bags to check home with me. The main problem was too many clothes to get home and too much hoarding of nonessentials. This year I vowed to live minimally. I didn’t take down as much clothing to school, I got rid of the things I didn’t need, didn’t keep knickknacks, and felt pretty good about the amount of stuff I had. Until I had to pack it all once again. And once again my life exploded in a frenzy of disbelief, despair, and frustration. I lived and kept all of my stuff in a closet shared by two other girls, one dresser with three drawers, and a third of the room occupying about a 5X10 area. Who knew there could be so much stuff. Decorations and entertainment in one box, kitchenware in another box. There are bathroom supplies, towels, bedding, lamps, and hangers that need to be left behind. And more than anything this year, there were BOOKS. Many, many, books. Essentially all of the books I’d used for the last three years. They make marvelous references and I refuse to give them up. When I look at it all as a whole, I realize that it’s really not that much in the grand scheme of things. They really are all things I need to keep, or are at least useful, except for my one box of decorations and games.

This year, apart from realizing once again that I need to live minimally, I realized that simply, people need a lot of stuff. Not to survive of course. I do not need that much clothing, bathroom supplies, cooking supplies, bedding, or the like to stay alive. But I’m not hiking through the wild living out of a backpack. I’m putting down roots, as temporary as they may be, and cooking my meals in a kitchen, showering in a bathroom, sleeping in a bedroom, having books and supplies for studying and working, having hobbies, and decorating with stories from mine and others pasts, which means having and needing stuff. My mindset is beginning to change. Living minimally to me no longer means only having enough stuff to fit in one duffel bag. It means being modest in the situation you live in and gracious with what you own, but putting down roots means your possessions will grow in abundance. There’s no sin in that.

4/29/11