“I’m a minimalist hoarder,” my husband said sheepishly to me as I stood staring at boxes full of old boat stuff. And climbing stuff. And brewing stuff. And backpacking stuff. But I can’t be one to judge. If he is a minimalist hoarder, then I am a sentimental collector. Boxes of books and small knick knacks from travels around the world still sit in our garage and shed. German novels from college, orange Swedish candlesticks, a silk doily from China, a painted rock from my best friend in high school, an award from a middle school essay contest. This does not even include the hundreds of books and pieces of art that made the cut to get out of boxes to adorn our shelves and walls. These boxes tell the story of our lives – as do our shelves and walls. So many parts of our lives went dormant when we had kids; perhaps the boxes hold the seed of hope that we may someday rekindle or revisit those things, or perhaps they just allow us to remember who we are even when our middle-aged lives look so different.
Still in the overwhelm phase of trying to pare down a full house, garage, and shed into a live-aboard existence on a 40 foot boat again, I can’t help but question what of all of this should stay and go. I find, however, when I allow myself enough time to pause and think, that it is not the boxes full of books, knick knacks, and old hobby equipment that bothers me so much. It is the boxes of toys only played with a few times, stunning amounts of kids’ equipment, bags and bags full of child and adult clothing to donate, and containers full of mismatched Tupperware tops and coffee mugs that make me question the nature of Stuff in our lives. As I try to strategize how to get rid of things, I wonder why I bought it or needed it in the first place. I remember. Sanity. The plastic baby fence, the swing, the toddler potty that was never used but that we bought because we thought it might inspire potty training (wishful thinking), the toy that I thought might buy me five more minutes to make dinner in peace (also wishful thinking), the portable coffee mug (because there was never enough coffee or mugs).
Why have we acquired so much Stuff? And yet why is it so hard to get rid of? We are products of more generations than just our own. We are products of our grandparents’ generation, who lived through the great depression, were extremely frugal, and saved everything because it might be useful. We are products of our parents’ generation when advertising was deregulated and Stuff became desired, cheap, and available in a world economy that continued to improve. We are products of our own generation – Generation X – when globalization came full force and over-consumption went from a status symbol to the social norm. We acquired Stuff out of social habit that convenience and speed directed and out of the desperation that a two-income household with two small children dictated. But we can’t throw our Stuff away because we feel guilty for throwing it away, because it wasn’t used to its full extent, or because it might still find a use.
How do we now take a cue from the next generation – the Millennial generation – who are building tiny houses, living within their means, and building sustainability into our everyday vocabulary? How do we take a cue from our children, who (though they may not admit it) are more content to build sandcastles on the beach than they are to play with the toy-chests full toys at home? “Mommy, I only want one present for Christmas,” Dylan announced to me when he was three. At five, he was already writing a long list to Santa of everything he wanted.
My goal is to find the happy medium. The minimalist hoarder and sentimental collector, who keep and acquire the things necessary to keep their histories and memories alive, because, they are, after all, our form of autobiography. But also the sustainable family that makes an effort to avoid new stuff that isn’t necessary, that minimizes consumption in order to reduce our footprint, and that recognizes that what we need more than anything is each other. And maybe a few books. And art. And camping equipment.