This isn't a post about the days of pre-Renaissance ruffians contributing to the Bubonic plague by tossing their refuse out of second-story windows. Sorry, but no.
This post is about getting rid of stuff collected over the years in my Middle Age...and perhaps yours.
While I very much enjoy reading inspiring posts from young bloggers, like Tynan's Life Outside the Box or Ev Bogue's evolution, it seems to me that getting rid of stuff for them is a far different process than for me. For example, Tynan placed an ad on Craigslist to invite strangers to come and take what they wanted from his house in the space of one day when he was ready to travel the world possession-free. Ev burned many of his belongings, and what he kept he was able to fit into a backpack.
Both are admirable ways of freeing oneself from one's worldly goods in order to do one's life-work unhindered, but they are young people's ways of doing it.
Having accumulated a houseful of stuff over the years is a gradual process. It's true that every time I've moved over the past 20 years or so (maybe 8 or 9 times), I've shed some of my detritus and unnecessaries.
But much remains to be done-- and for me, it's really like peeling layers of an onion. I try to focus on one area, like my bedroom closet by taking three 42-gallon bags of clothing to Goodwill or an armload of dresses to the local consignment shop. It's an organic process--in the coming months, I will be experimenting with various processes, such as 27 things in 9 days or filling one bag with unwanted items each week for a month to donate to charity.
The main thing for me is that the stuff in my house didn't multiply exponentially overnight, like mushrooms. It took years (ugh). And I don't want to leave it as my legacy. Time to work on it but also time to be patient in this gradual sloughing-off of many years' collection.
How about you? Do you kick extra stuff in your house to the curb immediately? Or, is it a steady release of unwanted items over time? Also: is a slow process only for those of us with more miles on the odometer?
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