But the nuance that many overlook is that a big
part of a reason we are making this move is BECAUSE we simplified and
downsized. It’s not just a nice coincidental
side benefit. Rather, it’s actually one
of the key causes of the move in the first place.
I believe it’s all about attitude and state
of mind, which is backed up by your “physical” life. It’s
about the direction in which your life is already pointing.
So, humor me for a couple minutes. Picture a 2500 square foot house (about
average these days in the U.S. – can you believe it?). Picture it full of stuff. Not excessive, hoarder-level stuff—just the
typical U.S. household. Multiple couches, beds,
dressers full of clothes, bookshelves full of books, entertainment centers and
equipment, 2 or more cars, recreational equipment, bins of decorations for
various holidays, kids toys and gear, house and yard care equipment, rarely used "formal" or "spare" rooms with rarely used furniture, etc.
When I picture this dwelling, these are the
words and feelings that fill my senses:
Heaviness
Weight
Roots
Planted
Entrenched
Dug in
Permanence
Pointing down, into the ground
Now picture a house maybe ½ that size. Picture very sparse furniture, and none of it
very heavy (i.e. beds with just a frame, no large, heavy head and foot
boards). Picture it containing
relatively limited amounts of the items in the larger house, such as extensive holiday
decorations, bookshelves, dressers, multiple cars, and lots of stuff in
indefinite “storage” in the garage.
(bedroom = a bed room. period.)
(Now for those of you who are already
thinking “bland and boring,” I’ll just quickly interject one of my favorite
quotes: "Minimalism
may appear plain and boring to begin with, but that is only true when your view
of life is limited to physical possessions.")
Anyhow, when I picture this second dwelling,
these are the words and feelings that fill my senses:
Lightness
Weightlessness
Hovering
Floating
Flexiblity
Portablility
Free space
Clarity
Pointing outward, upward
The more (and heavier) physical possessions
you acquire, the more you physically entrench yourself where you are. I’m not typically a “new age” sort of gal,
but I really believe it’s a life energy you embody. I am in no way saying that a person or
family with a big house and a lot of heavy stuff doesn’t move overseas (or
whether they should or shouldn’t). It happens all the time.
I just think it’s often slower and
harder. You have more to “lose,” and you
have to sort of dig yourself out of where you are so heavily planted to look up and
out, before you see or open yourself to the possibility. You may not even think it’s possible, or
focus primarily on the reasons it’s not. You may casually hope that it would “happen to
you.” But you must make the transition
from looking downward and inward to looking upward and outward, and there’s
some inertia that accompanies the physical heaviness of your life that you must overcome
to do so. And even if you do go, you may
find that you can’t bring everything you own; you must leave some of its girth
and bulk behind. But you “might need it
again someday,” so its weight stays with you and you can never fully detach
from it.
All I’m saying is that minimalism and this
move are connected more intimately than you might think. We didn’t wish an opportunity to move
overseas would someday “happen to us.” We
were already ready. We were looking
outward. We were open. We had little to risk and much to gain. We were light, floating—ready to seize an opportunity
at a moment’s notice. We were hovering.
