Let it go!

I made another trip to Goodwill today...and it probably won't be my last.
I started purging, selling, giving away and began the overall simplification of my home (and life) in January of this year.
At this point, I have to say, it feels so good to have so little.
An unexpected aspect of this cleansing process has been the amount of people who ask me why I did it, how I did it and, ultimately, how they can do it too! Seriously, every single day someone asks me about simplifying their life and getting rid of excess STUFF--how to start, where to begin and they want to know what in the world I did with all of MY stuff. I certainly don't have all the answers--and I still have a lot of things to go through--but I really did get rid of at least 3/4 of my belongings.
My purging, of course, was initially born of necessity. I was moving from a 1,500 square foot home with a two car garage into an 800 square foot apartment with no garage whatsoever. I had NO idea how long I was going to live there (turned out to be just under six months) but, having a major aversion to pay-by-the-month storage units, I knew a whole lot of stuff would have to go. And it started to feel so good...

To start with, I asked myself a few questions:

1. What do I really NEED? I started to go through EVERYTHING--clothes, shoes, pots, pans, games, decorations...everything! I literally realized that more than half my clothes could go. (I wear the same 10 things all the time.) How many coffee cups, frying pans, blankets and Christmas decorations does one person need? I cut all these things back to a minimal.
2. WHY am I keeping this? Books, movies, knick knacks, (too many) things that had been my Grandparent's. The books and movies had begun to multiply and I VERY carefully went through them all, keeping only those I knew I would read through again and/or had not read yet. With Netflix all but a handful of movies were easy to give away. Really, how many Eiffel Towers did I need in my house? At one point, I had 94. Exactly. And, did I need a hundred of my grandparent's knick knacks to remember them by? I'm extremely sentimental, but my memories, along with my photographs, are enough to remember people by. If there was no real reason to keep something, it was time for it to go.
3. Could I borrow (or rent) what I am storing? Now I'm talking about the big stuff. Folding tables and chairs, coffee urns, pitchers, jugs, serving trays, ice chests. Think about it--I work at a hotel for crying out loud! Could I borrow any of these things for the one time a year that I might use them? Yes. Then why oh why would I store it? I kept four folding chairs and a card table. Everything else had to go.
4. Can I replace this if I HAVE to have it again someday? You can buy back that Brady Bunch lunch pail on ebay tomorrow, if you really need to. You can go to Target and buy just about ANYTHING you need, truly, for minimal cost. I started to look up things that I thought might be valuable, only to find that they were worth 5 or 10 bucks. To me, that started to mean that IF I REALLY NEEDED TO, I could buy it back for that much too. (I have not needed to buy back anything at this point. Nothing.)

I realized, quickly, that there was very little that I was going to keep.
So, I did three things:

1. I called up friends and family members and let them know what I was doing. I told them to come on over if there was anything they wanted out of my house. Within a week or so, Annie bought the couch in my den, Lorraine bought my living room set, Joe basically bought everything out of my garage. Sarah took the Ruby's table. Jaime came and took just about every picture off my walls. I love to visit these things in THEIR homes now! (Everyone left with at least one Eiffel Tower too...)
2. I started selling the rest. Craig's List is THE greatest thing ever invented. People come and HAUL away your crap AND GIVE YOU MONEY TO DO SO! I sold all my Bobbleheads, my lunch box collection (I kept Bobby Sherman, of course), the Princess House glassware, all three televisions, the rest of the furniture, dishes, collectibles, and more! For a while there, I was making my schedule around people coming to buy something from me. I made nearly $3,000 in about six weeks. I will confess, it became an addiction. I LOVED it! As soon as someone would come to the door and hand me cash, I'd come back in the house, look around and say, "What else can I sell?!" And then I sold that too.
3. I made many MANY trips to Goodwill. I am not exaggerating when I tell you I made dozens of trips to Goodwill. Carloads full two and three times a week. I cannot tell you how INCREDIBLE it felt---every single time--to empty out the car and be FREE of all that STUFF.

And then here's the key from this point on...

STOP BUYING THINGS

Honestly, truly, what else could you possibly need/want/have to have?

And, if I do say so myself, my new home is lovely. There are empty cabinets. There is open space. There is a place for everything and everything is in its place.
I park my car in my one car garage.
There is no clutter. It is simple and satisfying. It is orderly and organized. It is clean and calm.
It is absolutely amazingly peaceful.
And I promise you, I have everything I could ever need.