I gazed at the mountain of plastic bags and felt anger flow through my veins. We’d spent months donating and selling our stuff.  An actual truck had come to haul half a house of furniture away. How was there this much left for the landfill? All of the plastic plush precious things I thought were so important were now shoved in black bags, off to pollute the Earth.  I shook my head.

What had we been doing?

When the good husband and I got married, we combined our lives into one unified household, stuffing the past in the basement. As our lives expanded, the boxes of stuff accumulated and got put away in bigger and bigger basements.  Eight years later, we made the big decision to move home to Michigan.  We also made the choice to value location over square footage. This meant a big downsize.  

It was time to face the Stuff.

“It doesn’t matter what objects leave our lives; the experiences are still there.”

Some stuff was easy to give away: outgrown children’s clothes would wrap someone else’s baby in softness. End tables that I was sick of dusting would grace someone else’s living room. The animal shelter would take our threadbare towels and old picnic blankets. Books could be given to local library’s rummage sale. The plethora of pristine kitchen tools could line the shelves of the local resale shop, and I could finally admit that I do not enjoy cooking.

But there were other things that were harder to give away… If I threw out the detritus from my first college apartment, I would have to accept that the bohemian era of my life was truly over. The era that was saturated in music and art, surrounded by friends, when the cares were few and ambitions were grand. Some of the best friends I will ever have drank from those cups, helped me hang that cheap poster. Sat on this couch. Studied at this table. If I gave it all away, it meant that these wonderful people were now living their own lives, spread across the country, far away from me.

If I threw away my collegiate binders and books, did it mean that scraping a melted plastic Elmo plate from the bottom of my dishwasher instead of going to national music conferences made me less of a person?

If I gave the antique cake stand to the lady at church, did it mean I loved my late grandmother less?

If I gave away that bright pink blouse that was too small and garish for my coloring, did it mean I was fat and also stupid for spending money on something that didn’t flatter me?

If I recycled the pile of art that the kids presented to me on a daily basis, what did that mean? What kind of monster threw out piles of lopsided hearts that said “mommy I luv u”??

In the end, I expunged it all, but it wasn’t enough. Here I stood, three days before the moving truck arrived, with a garage full of expensive trash. Giant plastic toys that we thought symbolized our big giant parental love. Mountains of stuffed animals. Tchotchkes that no one wanted. I can’t even imagine how much of our hard-earned money the bags of trash represented. I was furious at myself. Could we have taken a vacation, enjoyed dinner out, seen more of our slice of the world, experienced more if I hadn’t been busy buying all this STUFF? What’s more, if I hadn’t been busy accumulating and arranging and cleaning and caring for all of these lifeless objects, what else could I have been doing with my time?  Could I have played with my kids more? Sung more, taught more, read more?

Finally started to write that book?

As I hauled the bags to the curb in the fierce Georgia heat, I made a vow: This era of consumption was over. We would not do this again.

My story could end here: I gave away the majority our stuff,our house is peaceful and lovely, and the time we’ve saved caring for our stuffgives us the opportunity to do thethings we always wanted to do.

However, I found that there is a catch: you have to stop bringing stuff IN…

For someone who is a reformed hoarder, this was tough.  I was used to picking up this little thing or that little thing while shopping for essentials. Let’s be real: grocery shopping is boring. Picking out counter spray and toilet paper is extremely tedious. That new lipstick or ceramic bird or holiday sign that caught my eye was so cute. And cheap. And it distracted me from my boredom for about twenty minutes.  The problem was, after those twenty minutes, what was I supposed to do with that item? Place it in a drawer or on windowsill, where it would sit to gather dust until it found its way back into the trash?

If we went somewhere new, I always had to visit the little shops and pick out a souvenir. I would stress over price, and if it was the right thing, and if I should really buy it, and then convince myself to love it, and then panic later because I didn’t really want the thing and had no real use for it, and here it was in my suitcase and here my wallet was a little lighter when it didn’t need to be.

I played a game with myself that first summer home: I would not buy one single thing when we vacationed Up North.  I kept the vow, but I did bring something home: a sense of freedom, of lightness. That summer, I taught myself to take lots of pictures and spend my energy thinking about where to go and what to see. Instead of tchotchkes made in China and stamped with the name of a place, I came home with sand from newly discovered beaches, pictures of the kids eating local food, and a tan from spending time on the water rather than in the shops. 

I felt like I was learning to breathe.

The first year home came and went, and the new lifestyle started to feel normal. We began to really settle into our new era of minimalism. 

#Minimalism is very trendy these days: Marie Kondo is sparking joy on Netflix, books and blogs are popping up all over with prescriptions on how to live the #minimalist life.  Ironically, even those who want to sell us more stuff are catching on: bandying about the word “minimalist” to market sparsely designed items.

In our house, our Minimalist Era is not about design or trend. It’s about releasing ourselves from mountain of STUFF. Releasing our time from the maintenance and care of inert objects so we can spend our days creating things that matter to us. For me, that means creating a blog, writing a book, taking voice lessons. For my husband, that means building an ice rink and serving the community.  We’ve released our money from buying more and more objects that distract us for twenty minutes, choosing instead to spend on experiences we enjoy as a family: going out to eat. Vacationing Up North. Teaching the kids to ski. Giving to charities that mean something to us.

We’re still learning and are far from perfect. If you have seen my children’s rooms, you know full well they are not bare and bright spaces. There are  – ahem – a few more stuffed animals than the sterotypical “minimalist” room with a lone bespoke stuffed llama sitting smugly on the dresser.  Parts of our home explode with color and artistry and clutter that we try valiantly to contain. But overall, this change has been wonderful for our family.  And it had to start with me.

I gave away the stuff, but I didn’t give away who I am. In fact, by unburying myself from the mountain of things, I was able to see the culmination of my life more clearly. Who I want to be today and what I’m proud to have become: I’m a mother, a teacher, a writer, and a singer. My time and energy are now free for those endeavors because I’m no longer a guardian of relics.

Our experiences, not our things, are what make us who we are. For me, the experiences of college, the love of my grandmothers, the memories of toddlers handing me smeared drawings – those are what shape the woman I am at this moment.

It doesn’t matter what objects leave our lives; the experiences are still there. And we don’t need an object to affirm a memory.  We are rooted in our experience.  As the Gershwin brothers wrote, “Still I’ll always, always keep the memory of/The way you changed my life/ No, no they can’t take that away from me.”

We can throw away the stuff and find out who we are.

Up next: In April, I will write about minimalism with kids. Because yes, my kids like all kids are compulsive little hoarders of such things as pieces of cement they found on the sidewalk, sticks, taped-together toilet-paper rolls, etc. And they go to school which means they bring home mountains of paper on a daily basis that needs to be read and admired and… disposed of. But I have found that they too can be guided and taught about how to spend time and money on things that matter. 

And guess what? Those things are not things.

Thank you for spending your time with me today. See you in April.