Issue #7 A Harsh Look at Stuff
It’s All Too Much, Isn’t It?
Nearly everyone I know has or has had too much stuff in their lives. We accumulate stuff for various reasons, such as fear and insecurity, loneliness, guilt, or boredom. I’ll bet you can think of a few other reasons. Sometimes it seems there was no reason at all. The stuff just slowly appeared.
I got out of college and I had some clothes, a foot locker, a few dishes, a hot plate and a couple of pans. I had some stuffed animals, a couple decks of cards, a dice game, and some books, some toiletries and sheets, towels and a couple of blankets. It all fit nicely into my ’68 Chevy BelAire.
The guy I had met in college had a kitchen in his Des Moines apartment that was set up by his mother, a real Joy of Cooking aficionado… her, not her son. So most cooking we did was at his place.
I moved to Boone and took a job as a news journalist, weekend editor, feature writer, etc. In taking the job, I also took the apartment of the fellow whose job I wound up with. With the apartment, came a coffee table and a wire cage containing two gerbils.
My guy followed me to Boone and got a place across town and a couple of jobs.
I got a ring.
We got a place together. And a tank of fish. And some furniture.
We got married and received tons of stuff, including an antique cherry drop leaf table.
There were souvenirs of the wedding and souvenirs of the honeymoon. The stuff accumulated.
We moved when he became a cop. More stuff appeared: guns, targets, more clothes, a constant influx of books. And a dog, my dog: Fluffy was pregnant, so we took her from my parents to make a good home for her.
We got kicked out for smuggling a dog in and out of the window of the apartment, so we rented a house: three bedrooms, 928 square feet. Soon, it was all full. Of course the puppies had arrived and accoutrements began to collect. Bowls, toys, beds, blankies, and oh yes, somewhere along the way a second pair of gerbils had joined our household.
So fish, a wayward snail named Speedy, four gerbils, three dogs and a partridge in a pear tree. Well, not actually, but there was a parakeet for a short time. He was a real screamer. The bird soon went to live with another policeman who raised parakeets. Owlie turned out to be quite a little egg layer, and was soon a mother. I guess he was a she. A brief experience with a kitten shocked us into realizing that vertical surfaces were fair game and the kitten went to live with a cat lady.
Stuff. We sold a lot of stuff before moving to Florida. A small rental house awaited us. Then a move to a bigger rental we shared with a friend. Then she bought a duplex. We rented half. We got a windfall and were informed we had to spend it on a house of our own. (bad advice from an accountant) 900 square feet or so had always seemed about right, even though it may have grown a bit cramped with stuff.
So we built a new house. 3,660 square feet is just about four times larger than what we were accustomed to. So what did we do? We promptly began to fill it with stuff. The stuff we had did not begin to fill it up. We had to get more stuff. And so we did.
Too much stuff. And now, post-divorce, and no longer in Florida, I find myself with enough stuff to supply maybe 3 large families with adequate stuff. Garage sale-ing has been a slow way to divest myself of stuff. Many more weekends shall be taken up by baring my retail soul to the passing public. I’m Craigslisting also, and thinking of giving Half.com a try.
The goal: Freedom through simplicity. Eventually I will spend much less time and money maintaining and warehousing stuff. This house, which is on the market, is about 2800 square feet. It’s full, but the dogs and I only live in three rooms of it: kitchen, bedroom, and ‘dog den,’ plus the bathrooms. Oh yeah, Munchie eats in a wee corner of the dining room to keep him from fighting with the others. Mealtime crating could also solve that issue. The rest of it is storage for furniture, books and miscellanea.
Having lost three of my six dogs this past year or so, I see clearly how having TOO MUCH in the way of pets can really complicate your life. I miss Tucker, Bob and Sierra fiercely, but know now that three is my absolute limit for sane living. Eventually it will be two and I do not intend to go beyond that.
In my garage sale, I have a number of purses for sale. Almost new, they are the result of choices based on color more than anything else. Are they cute? Damn straight they’re cute. Useful? Not so much. To me, a soft-sided purse is a collapsing star. You put something in it and the black hole enfolds itself over the item and you may never see it again, unless it is ejected by some cosmic mishap, like a spillage. It makes a nice show but you wouldn’t want to live there.
I stumbled across a web site earlier today that promised the ultimate in bags. Every single bag I looked at had some issue taking it out of the running for me. (except one, but I won’t get it due to the aforementioned financial difficulties). Anyhow, there were thousands. I do not know how many thousands, but certainly the styles and designers outnumber the population of Great Britain and the Commonwealth.
Point? Too many choices. In many cases the distinguishing characteristics amounted to nothing but variations in the shape and amount of bling. Why are so many resources used to make so many worthless purses? It is a competition based fundamentally on greed, I think. The creativity that has been spent on the various designs only makes them different enough to not be copies of basic patterns. It’s All Too Much!
Point? I think perhaps I will decorate an empty paint bucket and carry my stuff in that. It’s the right size. It’s got a sturdy handle, and hard sides to keep it from collapsing. I’d rather it were rectangular instead of round, but hey, sometimes our choices are not perfect even when they are the best at the time.
So, here’s the deal.
I am in this uncomfortable financial, emotional and physical situation because of the choices I have made. I have chosen to seek security in the accumulation of stuff. What I have found instead of security, is enslavement.
As goes the individual, so goes the nation. Who said that? Not sure, but it is demonstrated to be true over and over again. We as individuals have overspent ourselves into various levels of personal financial crisis. America has overspent itself into a state of unprecedented and perilous financial crisis.
As I work to excavate myself from this dark pit of debt, I pray that America will begin to follow suit.
Let’s save America one individual at a time. Join me in my quest for debt free, low impact living.
My first step has been to stop all spending. Now I only buy gasoline, food, and replacement clothing for work. Okay, confession time, the hardest thing to give up has been buying books and, I’m tapering off rapidly. The only books I’ve purchased recently were used books, for mere pennies. But I’ve taken a lesson from several of my bookstore browsers (cannot call them customers since they do not buy, only browse). I use my cell phone to take shots of books that I want. It’s like a cooling off period. If I’m still really interested in the book, I can borrow it at a library or get it used for pennies. Meanwhile, I no longer whip out the credit card, and I also leave the debit card tucked away safely.
Converting to a cash-only basis is a challenging adjustment, but I was surprised to find that it actually feels good.
Some contend that ceasing spending will further ruin the economy. I agree it will have impact, but I think it should be looked at as a transformation rather than a ruination. The future will be different than the present. We know that. It’s a given. And that is a topic for another issue.
Be Well
Victoria
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