Yesterday morning, I woke up and realized that I somehow had 5 hours with nothing pressing to do! Naturally, my first instinct was to lay in bed… but I managed to talk myself into still getting up at 8:00am. After eating some cereal (Kashi just came out with a super yummy chocolate GoLean Crunch!), I sat down and just sort of stared at my wall.
What to do for about 4.5 hours before leaving for my lab…?
While I was considering this, I realized that I couldn’t actually focus on it at all. I was too distracted by the mountain of papers that had accumulated on my desk! I, eventually, pulled up YouTube and saw a bunch of videos about minimalism in my recommended feed.
Alright, Universe. I guess I’ll start cleaning!
What is minimalism?
If you haven’t heard of minimalism, it is basically the practice of paring down your possessions and other aspects of your life so that you are living intentionally and with joy. Chances are, you’ve heard of Marie Kondo’s book about minimalism, entitled the life-changing magic of tidying up. That book really sparked a lot of people to look at their lives and see what they could pare down. However, minimalism was on my radar long before I heard of that book!
Freshman year move-in
Moving to college is stressful, for those of you who maybe haven’t done it or have blocked it out of your memory. My move-in day for my first semester of college was about a week before other freshmen because I was there early for a symposium. I am so glad that not everyone was moving in because it was a nightmare on its own! My residence hall had elevators that stopped between the floors and then had a half-staircase to either floor. That made moving heavy things very difficult, not to mention it isn’t very accessible. I don’t have any pictures of the chaos itself, but I do have this one of my stuff all ready for move-in!
Getting all of that stuff, plus the stuff that I picked up at Target after moving in, into my itty-bitty shared dorm was a feat of strength, and took the help of all 6 of the people there with me to get done. Corralling it into a manageable layout was a whole separate process that continued throughout the year. However, as I looked back at how stressful it was to get all of my stuff in there, I started thinking in horror about how I would get everything out of there when it came time to move-out! That thought made me really start exploring the concept of minimalism.
Exploring minimalism
I began paring things down throughout the year, but it was still very difficult to move-out. In fact, it took 2 trips with my boyfriend helping me! I lived with him over the summer, and didn’t think that I had accumulated much, but somehow it seemed like I had to move even more back in for the past fall! I also had an arm/shoulder problem at the time, so everything was divided into a ton of small bags that I could carry. It was easier to get everything put away because of the increased storage in my apartment this year! I had a few small purges throughout the semester, but no huge changes.
From a dorm to an apartment
In the end, my first-year roommate, Margaret, and I ended up moving out of our apartment after the fall semester into the apartment we currently live in. The entire decision and process occurred very quickly, which didn’t leave much time for preparing. I managed to pare down about two more garbage bags before finals rolled around. I packed everything pretty tightly together in preparation for the move, even though I wasn’t going to be able to move anything myself. Unfortunately, I had surgery only a few days after my last final and had to move exactly one week after that! My dad (thanks, Dad!) ended up moving everything for me while I supervised! It was great to not have to move anything, but I didn’t have time to unpack.
Returning post-surgery
When I got back up here in January, I was confronted with boxes and bags of stuff everywhere. In addition, I had the luggage that I had from winter break. As I unpacked and organized, I set aside things to donate and get rid of. Most of the stuff, though, did stay! So, every so often since then, I’ve been holding mini purges of things.
What I’ve been learning is that having less around me makes me less stressed and happier. With less clutter, I have less brain fog and can focus more on the things that matter to me. Plus, I can have great discussions with Margaret because she is also into minimalism and even wants a tiny house! It’s exciting that this simple change can give me a whole new lifestyle and outlook!
If you’d like to follow along with my journey, stay tuned for another post or check out my lifestyle inventory!