We recently packed up and moved from California to Texas using organizational guru Marie Kondo’s “spark joy” method, in which you touch each object you own, and if the item doesn’t spark joy in you, you part with it via donation or trash. My family learned that the vast majority of things filling our home did not resonate with us on a joyful level — and the process was life-changing.
On the destination end of our move, we had to put our belongings in storage for three months, and the day the movers pulled up to our new home in a giant truck containing all our “stuff,” we wished they just kept driving.
Knowing we’d be living solely with what we could fit into our cars, everyone in my family selected a few choice objects in addition to clothing to take on the journey. For my kids it was a couple keepsake stuffed animals, for my husband and me it was logistical paperwork, irreplaceable and priceless items like his grandmother’s locket necklace and practical items like my laptop. As a plant lady, I fit as many plants as I could possibly stash on the floorboards as well. It was extraordinarily liberating to realize that anything we felt we needed to survive fit into the trunks of our cars.
We felt free, as both the literal and mental burden of being weighed down by belongings was lifted off all of us
Another aha moment in the moving process was when we paid junk haulers a painful $300 to cart off a bunch of items that were in too poor condition to even donate. Seeing them toss and break many of our belongings onto a flatbed trailer before driving them to the dump was eye-opening. While the items they carted away had served my family well for years, it made us realize that we needed to adopt a more cradle-to-grave philosophy with our purchases and skip some purchases altogether in the future.
While I thought I had been pretty mindful about unnecessary purchases, the process of culling our belongings, making umpteen trips to Goodwill, or filling garbage bags with treasures that quickly turned to trash, and seeing all our stuff pulled out of every drawer and closet and our garage, made me realize I needed to change my mentality on purchases big and small, and frankly to quit being such a consumer.
Beware: Seeing all those trips to the $1–$3 section at Target at once in a trash bag really changes a person’s life perspective
The home hunting process took longer than we expected, and one month of planned temporary housing turned into three months. With each passing day, we couldn’t even recall what awaited us in our storage boxes. All of those things we bought that we thought we “had to have” at one time were now barely fuzzy memories encased in temporary tombs. We joked that we would all be fine if we started over and never laid eyes on those boxes again.
In my heart, I knew I only cared about the boxes that housed my kids’ keepsake memories and cherished baby items, and our collection of Christmas ornaments. Otherwise, I had all I needed. This wasn’t due to lack of appreciation for what we own on any of our parts, more so it was the feeling that parting with all our stuff had no negative impact on us or the quality of our lives.
When the day finally arrived for us to move into our home, everyone in my family was filled with dread as we watched the movers unpack our boxes into our empty house.
Our clean slate and fresh start was instantly weighed down by our past
Complete overwhelm struck. It was the kind of experience that changes you at your core.
Even my kids have lost their longing to purchase unnecessary items that will be categorized as useless clutter in no time. When we started unpacking our boxes, they didn’t even want to keep many of the items that made the cut prior to our move. Having lived without it all for months forged my family’s collective desire to become minimalists.
Today, with the exception of clothing needs, we make consumable and experiential purchases only. The saying “less is more” now really hits home.
