All our furniture, clothes, dishes and so on arrived from the US today, after many weeks at sea (on a slow boat to China ha ha). As always, what struck me most forcibly about seeing my stuff after a long separation was how crappy it all is. We do have a (very) few nice things, but since we never had much money and were always moving, for the most part it is thrifted, donated by relatives (thanks Mom!) or from Ikea (and was purchased because it was the cheapest version at Ikea). What a lot of junk.
The other thing that strikes me is how unnecessary most possessions are. We survived quite happily for eight weeks without all this stuff. I missed a few things, but for the most part if everything had somehow been destroyed (say the ship sank) it wouldn't have really mattered.
Unfortunately, once I own something, I hate to get rid of it, partly because I paid for it, but mostly because I develop an attachment to it (although it is largely a superficial one, since it's out of sight, out of mind for most things). Now that my stuff has returned to me, the thought of getting rid of one of my many rabbit statues or stuffed animals (I have too many) is painful, even though I didn't miss them before.
B would say that the cure for this is never to buy anything (he is cheap, and also hates shopping for everything except computer equipment). But I really enjoy shopping and getting nice new things, so I'm unwilling to adopt his recommendations. I should enforce the rule of getting rid of at least one thing for every thing that I buy more strictly. (And maybe tossing at least 20 objects this week would be a good goal too.)
I also need to reassess my clothes. I have so many ugly, unflattering clothes because they are still perfectly good. I tell myself I can use them for sleeping or exercise, and then they clutter up my life. Maybe I should only have two exercise outfits, and get rid of the rest. Also, since I sleep naked, and live in the tropics, I probably really don't need multiple pajama/night clothes options. Those should be tossed too. And then I want to think more about what new clothes to get once I go shopping, so that I can look good all the time.
This is the story of my life right now! Everything we own was either a used item from family, or a cheap piece of furniture from Ikea or Target (like bookcases).
ReplyDeleteI also need to go through all of my clothes and just donate stuff. After being pregnant, nothing fits me correctly any more, and I would rather get cute new things as my body changes, than try and wiggle into my old/worn out clothes.
We have made a habit of keeping a "donate" box by the front door. Once it gets full we close the box up and hang onto it for a month. If at the end of that month I haven't broken into the box for something, and I can't even remember what is IN the box... we drop it off at the goodwill. We've donated over 6 boxes of just "stuff" in the last 8 months! My house still feels full of STUFF, but it's a work in progress! lol.