Getting Rid of Excess
When Morrison started crawling around the same time Mike and I were moving for the second time in two years, I had a major awakening. The first realization was that Mo was starting to get into everything! And then that I would have to pack up an apartment with a crawling baby around. Both of these meant the less stuff, the better. It was then that I did a major purge of every area of my life and space. I got rid of SO MUCH stuff. An example of this was 25-30 garbage bags full of clothes, shoes, and accessories! Insanity to say the least.
It’s been two years and two more moves since then, and I have managed to maintain my minimalist approach and further purged things like my inbox, reading lists, and music library. It has provided me with less mental clutter, less to clean, and much less for kids to get into! I’ve read several books on the subject, and used some of the information, but I think cleaning and removing excess is very personal. Each individual has a minimum that they are comfortable with in different areas of their life. The goal is to get to a place where you feel light and not tethered to a lot of material items. For example my collection of clothes is probably larger than many (albeit much less than it was!) but fashion is a true love of mine and brings me immense joy therefore I allow more space for it.
I thought I would start a little series that discusses how and where I eliminated and what was left in hopes that it inspires someone to lighten up! This also goes along with my new endeavor to minimize the amount of trash and recycling our family gets rid of. I will document this too as I get further into it for anyone interested in lessening their waste and footprint.
All of this is top of mind for me as Spring (hopefully) blesses us with its presence. I find myself looking for this to clean out, and not finding too much! A few truly masculine clothing items that won’t be passed on to Marin from Mo, and some of my old tanks that are stained and not worth holding on to. It has made keeping our space clean so much easier, and tidying during the day a 5 minute task rather than anything more arduous. Follow along if you are interested. I’ll start with kids rooms and toys in my next post.