Friday, February 24, 2012

Downsizing: Part III

For me, it’s easy to imagine a life without my stuff—unencumbered, light, free. I have slick back hair in my fantasy…and a one piece body suit. Whatever. But as I carry on my wayward, I’m finding it more and more difficult to part with the last of my collection. Each item seems to represent something outside of itself. Ya know? from that time I went that one place and so on.

Thankfully, I’ve been able to derive inspiration from one of my favorite people, Julia from Today I threw Away… She had been getting rid of five things a day for about a year, but then she took a break. But now? She’s back! Admittedly, I’m quite glad she started this project last year, when I was first thinking about this whole adventure. It made me want to acquire less stuff and scale down for the future. Counterintuitive, huh?

And so it follows, now seems like a good time for an update on the whole downsizing thing. I will once again be ‘floating,” and need to disappear for about a week. So I've organized all my stuff. It only seems fitting. 

I managed to sort everything in three piles. First, is the stuff that I will donate or “gift.” I have it sitting in the basement ready for departure:

Here’s the helpful infographic to outline the stuff that I’m leaving in the closet. There is still so much to get rid of:


Ok, maybe that’s not all that helpful. Doesn’t it seem like I have more stuff than last time? I’m not sure how that happened, but this is the honest to god last of it—blankets and all. OK fine, I still have one bike... and this stuff, that I’m taking with me:




I swear, the next time that I do one of these downsizingentries I’ll be a lean mean travelin’ machine, or maybe not. This is hard er than it looks...

PS. I had this entry ready to go last week when I began my houseless wanderings, but my transient lifestyle has made it difficult to simultaneously find electricity & internet that my 2005 DELL Inspiron can connect to--she's finicky. I'm going to need to level up my hardware if I'm ever going to become the digital nomad of my dreams. 

4 comments:

  1. Question: the lampshade down there.... is it yours? Do you want it? Can I have/dissect and reuse it?

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    1. @Rosalind - Yes, the lampshade down there is mine. It comes with a lamp, but the shade and the lamp don't actually connect to one another. I would just carefully balance the shade on top of the lamp. Is there a way we can dissect & reuse the lamp too?

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  2. Looking pretty lean and mean to me! I aspire to be as minimalist as you, awesome one.

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    1. Why thank you, oh inspiratonal one! I've been trying.

      I've also reading The Minimalists (http://www.theminimalists.com/). I think you would like them. They've been helpful to me. Ha! Sheesh! Who would have thought that I would need so much moral support for this process?!?

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