With just a few weekends to go before we head out, it has finally sunk in that we need to pack up all of our stuff and downsize our lives to fit inside a 36-foot sailboat.
I hate moving. Who doesn’t? But I am really looking forward to a nice, big, purge.
Moving out of SF seemed pretty simple. We live in a studio apartment furnished exclusively with disposable Ikea flatpack. Will has been vigilant about keeping my shoe purchases in check. And we’ve tried to avoid accumulating anything over the last year that we wouldn’t want on the trip with us. And yet it will surprise no one that we have an apartment full of things.
I read an article the other day about the psychology of “stuff ownership”. The article featured a Japanese organization guru named Marie Kondo. Kondo’s thesis is that we have a relationship with everything that we own. She advocates that if we want to declutter our lives we should periodically go through all of our belongings and jettison anything that does not evoke some sort of joy.
The exercise is simple. Go through your home and individually pick up each item you own. Hold the item in your hand and see how you feel. In theory, you should feel something. Some items will make you feel guilt – the gifts you received that you don’t want, but feel like you cannot throw away. Others will make you feel shame – the pants that no longer fit. Some will make you feel bored. And then some will make you feel happy, attractive, cool or some other form of “joyful”. She advocates only keeping the joy provoking items and getting rid of the rest. From there, you have a space that not only has less clutter, but which also makes you feel good every time you come home. For someone who has never been neat or clutter-free in her life, this sounds pretty good!
Not to get too philosophical – but creating a life filled simply with things that make us happy is kind of what this Monday Never trip is all about. The time and freedom to explore beautiful parts of the world, to be together all day and to simply live and enjoy life outdoors with a lot of exercise naturally thrown in. That’s my hope for this trip anyway. And I’m also hopeful that we will be able to take what we learn from living a simpler existence and apply it back to our Monday-filled lives when we return.
And with that, it’s time to tackle the mess that is my closet.
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