I was reading the other day about a young man who managed to travel without luggage. He had one of those Scottevests that allowed him to put all his requirements in his pockets. When I go away, I need a bus to take all the things our little family will need!
All the stuff I surround myself with in life is heavy—physically, and increasingly emotionally. As I look around my home, I wonder how any one person can need what surely amounts to tonnes of possessions. Even if you discount the furniture, I have an inordinate amount of possessions and I know that not all of them add to my quality of life. It would be interesting to look at this from an social anthropologist’s point of view, but of course I’m not educated in that field and am never likely to be.
When you read what decluttering gurus have to say, it’s clear that I’m doing it all wrong. I still have some clothes from my childhood as well as those that fit every iteration of weight I have been for the past 10 or 15 years. I have no intention of getting rid of them, although I could lighten my load. A little. I suppose.
The kitchen and pantry don’t exactly groan under the weight, but they are filled with many more dishes and utensils than are required. The kitchen is probably not large according to today’s gigantic proportions, but the pantry is huge and the items still manage to spill out onto the floor instead of containing themselves to the shelves. The truth is that as the person who prepares the food in the household, I am in charge of the number of things in that room and I have allowed the space to become somewhat overwhelming. I say ‘somewhat’ because I do make attempts from time to time to rein in the monster.
I have come to the conclusion that the only way to successfully see how much is too much is to assiduously put like things with like. So all my clothes and shoes, with the exception of those in my bedside set of drawers, are in one place. It’s a pretty cluttered look and I could easily fix it by removing the clothes and shoes I don’t wear on a day-to-day basis and packing them away somewhere else. But I have spent quite a lot of time gathering everything to the same spot because I think that way I will be able to teach my eyes and my heart the concept of enough. At the moment, packed close, they silently and compellingly spell out ‘too much’.
I think the reason I am so aware of this is that I want to change. I want to live lighter, and certainly I am not adding to the weight anymore. The only trouble is, most of the time I’d rather read about it or even write about it than actually do it.