"Do I have too much stuff?"

So let's play a game. This game is called, "Do I have too much stuff?" It only has a few steps, but the guidelines can be a little strict. Here's how it goes:

First, let's go over the rules.
1. You get 60 days to prepare for "Game Day."
2. You can have 1 person go with you on this adventure full-time.
3. A third person can help you up to game day, but for the last battle, they must not be in attendance. (Yes, in your hardest hour, the one where you are exhausted and would give anything to go back in time to before the game started, you must work one-person shy.)
4. You must take all pets with you, regardless on your feelings about your son's snake or your daughter's rabbit, unless your spouse agrees it's ok to give said pets to someone who will love them unconditionally. If you decide to take the pets, remember they will need their own space.

Here are the pieces you're playing with:

You need to get a metal or fiberglass box on wheels, as nice as you can afford with all the amenities you want to invest in, but you can't make it any longer than 30 feet for two people.

Secondly, you can have 1 storage room, but it has to be realistic in size. Let's go 10x10x12.

Next, you can buy as many packing boxes as you want, but you have to give your partner 30% of the total weight allowed in the moving truck for his/her personal stuff that will eventually go into storage. Total amount of all of your stuff together may not weigh more than 7400 pounds and your moving truck cannot be larger than 26 feet.

Now, here's how we play.



When I say, "Go", go through your entire house, garage, current storage units, campers, sheds, etc and look at every single thing you own.



The first time you see everything, you will think all you own has to go. Weigh it and measure it. Weigh each and every piece, marking down it's weight and it's cubic footprint. Realize it's way overweight or takes up too much space in the moving truck, and also that you can't get it in the box you're pulling on wheels behind you. Look at everything all over again with a lump in your throat.


Suddenly, the entire game as changed.

This isn't a game a good percentage of people would want to play. Most wouldn't even attempt it. Especially when you're like us - 40 and coming up on our mid-life crises. But after years of accumulating things, making memories, buying and selling furniture to make your house look just right, the game says you must somehow give it up or give it away.

That's the hardest part, I think. That letting go. Things don't even have to have memories, it just feels like you need it. Like it's part of you somehow.

For example, I had a little tiny piece of wood given to me by my sister when we first moved into the Westview house. She thought it would match my country theme, as it was a piece of thin plywood with an apple cut-out on it, and it, of course, was made in China. (If it had been made here by a fellow crafter, I'm sure it would have meant much much more to me.) When it came time to decide on that piece, I sat for a long moment staring at it. I could remember the exact evening she gave it to me. I remember thinking how nicely it would fit into my thematic home decor and how I proudly displayed it. But did I need it? No. Did it hold a special memory for me? Not really, other than accepting it from my sister. But yet, how could I let it go?

It was the pit in my stomach that caused me to drop the plaque into garage sale box. How was I ever going to get rid of anything, especially the stuff that memories were made from, if I couldn't even find a new home for this little plaque?


It was a hard month. We had to go through everything. From boxes of papers we had accumulated from 1987 and on, to boxes I hadn't unpacked since 1998 when I moved in with Patrick. I had to buy a new shredder for those papers, as I burnt out the first one, and most of the stuff in those old boxes was thrown away. But I can't lie. It was horrible having to pry these memories out of my hands and almost torturous to either throwing the things away or selling them for pennies on the dollar.

But if it wasn't nailed down, it went up for sale. If it wasn't worth at least $5 for someone, it went in the garbage. We threw away over 60 black contractor bags, the really really big ones, full of stuff. That's not to mention all the things we didn't put in bags and set out at the curb for people to take for free.

After a while, I have to admit, I got used to the severing of ties. It actually started to feel good to let go. Before too long, I was ruthless.

Have I used it in 6 months?
No? Throw it away.
Yes? Will I use it again in the next six months?
No? Throw it away.
And so on.

The morning of the big move, Patrick and I were alone. Jaryd had left us the night before to move in with his girlfriend's family. We had wanted to be on the road by 7 AM but as we stood looking out over the 2 car garage still full of stuff, we realized there was no way we were going to make the timeline.

We spent the next 5 hours being extra cut-throat. All these items had either come from the office or had not been packed due to conflicting feelings on their place in our future. By 2 PM, we had another 20 bags of garbage at the curb. I couldn't see through the black bags and I was glad. Would I run out there and try to rescue that red shirt? Would the boxes of folders I threw away guilt me into sneaking them onto the moving truck?

I'm not a hoarder, but my only saving grace was that I couldn't see through those bags.

It was my stuff, our stuff. Stuff we had accumulated together. Memories we had made.

But I think the thing that really encouraged my purging was knowing my son and the fact that he would never, not in a million years, respect the memories I had accumulated. He doesn't have a sentimental bone in his body. I feel bad about that, as I would love to pass down heirlooms to him, but that's just how he is. He has no interest in family history or belongings passed down from departed relatives. I have a big box of photos and nostalgia that will never mean anything to him because he has no interest in it.

And looking at the stuff we were parting with, I realized it was better in someone else's house, making more memories and possibly becoming a loved and cherished heirloom, rather than sitting in storage, waiting until my son would come clean it out, just to sell it off or throw it away later.

So we did what we had to do. And when we reached our storage room, a whopping 1200 cubic feet, with a ceiling soaring 12 foot high over a 100 square foot footprint, Patrick packed what little we had left (which is still quite a lot) as high as he could. You can't open the door unless you're willing to be laid out by a 100 pound queen sized mattress, but he got it all in there.

Now granted, the car is still packed. And I have 2 boxes outside the RV waiting to be unpacked because the bathroom cabinet in the RV is full. Inside the RV, we are still organizing on a daily basis and we are yet finding more and more things to throw away. Just today, Patrick tossed out 6 or 7 t-shirts he first felt he should store in case he needed them. That wouldn't have been so bad, but I realized they were stained, torn, bleached, you name it. They were cruddy work shirts he was willing to put into deep storage. Even he has the "stuff" disease.

It's in all of us. Stuff. We need stuff.

Only we don't. Not like we all think we do.

This is our experiment in how to get along without stuff. Keep coming back and find out how we're doing. Who knows? You might want to try living large while living small, too.