News from Jules | 01.30.2023 | Closer to What is
Yesterday, I finished downsizing my 5’x15’ storage unit. It was the first time in a month that I felt the bearable lightness of being. That perhaps there is some emotional baggage I’m done carrying.
I was finally at the finish line. Well, a finish line—that felt deeply satisfying, immensely relieving and so freeing.
I am now renting 30 percent less space containing 50 percent less stuff. I could have an even smaller unit, but I want spaciousness to take things in and out while traveling this year. It’s not about the money—I’m only saving $25 per month—or even quantity, but quality. Getting my life closer to the present, closer to what is.
So perhaps rightsizing is a more appropriate description.
A real estate website describes it this way: “Rightsizing is the process of understanding how you live in your home, uncluttering your life, and then moving to a new space (often smaller than your previous one) in which you can fully utilize each room.”
I want to fully utilize everything.
But I knew I still had a lot of surplus.
Hence reopening what felt like Pandora’s Closet at the beginning of January. I was completely overwhelmed in just a few days. Within a couple of feet of the entrance, I discovered four bins of clothing, which thoroughly confused me. What the heck?
But, I have a “capsule wardrobe.” Don’t I already have all my clothes with me?, I wondered.
Apparently not.
Opening all the bins, I understood. It was a different kind of capsule.
A time capsule of things that were expensive. Things that had potential. Things that I liked. Things that I wanted to like. Things that spark joy. Things that spark nostalgia. Yet, none of it that I had remembered I still had.
I realized that if I sorted one-by-one, I could re-justify everything.
So, instead, I sorted items between bins for “past life” and bins for “future life.” With a few exceptions, everything went back into a bin and then right into my car to a resale shop, which surprisingly took nothing—literally not a single item—so then to Goodwill.
I used this same approach and dug deeper to remove and redistribute anything that seemed related to a wedding, partner, babies, houses, jobs, or businesses.
Holy moly. This is where it got ugly. It wasn’t just Pandora’s Closet but opening a Can of Scarcity. Things that spark “all manner of misery and evil.”
I was so angry. And annoyed. And frustrated. And embarrassed.
Not only with the all-consuming fantasies, but the consumption.
How could I want so much and have so much, yet take it all for granted?
And what really blew my mind: This wasn’t everything I’d consumed in my life so far. Not even close. This was just what I’d kept. I’d actually downsized many times before while moving homes on an almost annual basis since college.
But, for every one thing that left, it seemed like two new things came in. A vicious cycle.
The hours it took to once again separate everything that could be recycled or upcycled or donated instead of going to a landfill, and then dropped off with Apple or Patagonia or Goodwill or Ridwell or Dress for Success or Mother & Child or friends and more, felt like penance.
This is when I got demoralized and wanted to give up. Friends shared necessary compassion and perspective that helped me push through. I finally made it to my childhood bins and furniture at the back of my storage unit. Everything I took when I was 24 years old and we moved out of the house where I grew up in Portland, Ore. Four years after my Mom died, my sister was married, my Dad was getting remarried, and my brother was engaged. The rest of my family was moving on and I was just starting to grieve.
Back then, I put in countless hours over many months to help purge our home of 20 years of living. A hard lesson to learn so young yet still motivates me: The dead do not have to deal with their life. It is those still living who are responsible.
A burden I do not want my family to bear.
This unfinished business was one of the reasons I came home for the holidays. Not because I think I’m going to die soon, but to rightsize my life for now—and later.
Back to a reality of dreams that no longer fit, expectations that never did, and consumption that isn’t sustainable. A lifestyle that was so overwhelmed in the present it clung to the past and grasped for the future.
Sure, a lifestyle that I’ve been conscientiously coming to terms with for years.
The personal, the universal, the familial, the global, the psychological, the physiological, the spiritual—it’s a lot to untangle.
As I’ve peeled away the layers of delusion disconnecting me from the natural world, I’ve been getting back to the essence:
What is true for me?
What is our current reality?
What does the world need from me right now?
And then, how do I adapt?
Right now, the world needs me to live simpler, leaner, kinder.
After a month of heavy lifting, I didn’t get through everything—there are still books and art and household items to prune—but I feel a whole lot lighter.
While I was reorganizing what remains to fit in the new 5’x10’ unit, I started having more and more sparks of joy. In one bin after another, I rediscovered beautiful things and reconnected with my values for beauty and creativity and learning and adventure, and especially nature. I found so many sustainably made products, for instance, glass soap dispensers, wooden toilet brushes, and bamboo sheets. I forgot about all the research on conscious consumption that I did in 2020 to move away from disposable, extractive, single-use life.
I started getting excited about having my own space again one of these days.
Until then, I am especially enjoying the freedom and lightness of just being now.
May you live closer to what is this week.
Love,
Jules