Consumption

After nearly three years of waiting, waiting, waiting, the end is almost here.  In just under three weeks time, I will be leaving upstate New York and relocate at long last to someplace where somebody loves me and where winter is about four months shorter (like it SHOULD be!).  And that means, of course, just like when I'm raptured into heaven, all my stuff cannot come with me.

Now, I'm not one of those people who is super attached to stuff.  I don't generally keep Things I don't need or use.  I do not hoard.  In fact, I may have a more serious problem of the opposite.  Last year, I read an article about an emerging urban simple living movement - not urban simple living in the sense of inner city poor people who are minimalist by force (bwahaha - who in the world would write an article about folks who have to limit their consumption as experts on limiting consumption?!), but white professionals who independently and of their own free will choose to abscond with Things.  I'm with the latter.  Inspired by such calls for limiting consumption to necessities, I've routinely purged my attic apartment of excess books, clothes, and sundry knickknacks.  The only time I ever feel any guilt is when I pull out something someone I care about gave me, usually my Mom.  Sometimes, dear readers, I am not strong enough to let it go...maternal obligation and projected guilt is an unconquerable force, but I do try.

And I'm not much of a Thing Purchaser, either.  I find the mall horribly depressing.  I get a very powerful urge to go, oh, four times a year, usually when the seasons change.  Suddenly it becomes very important that I get some shorts, or new canvas shoes, or a wool coat.  But then I become incredibly sad on the bus ride home with all of these bags of Things under my seat, over half a day lost to the great mall vortex and a credit card bill to look forward to, and I've maxed out on shopping until the next solstice.

Don't think that my resistance to Things is due to some Gandhian-like qualities.  It's not.  It's more because I am extremely cheap.  Like my mother, I adore a good 'deal.'  I abhor paying full price for anything.  As a rule, I shop sales racks (sometimes I pretend to look at items at the front of the store because zipping back to the sales feels a tad rude...but it's all for show, sales staff, all for show).  A few years ago, I discovered Clothes Mentor and have been a devoted convert ever since.  Basically you bring clothes you don't wear anymore and they maybe buy some of it (I'm generally told my style is "too mature" or the tags are too old) and donate the rest to charity, and then you can get bourgeois brands for cheap, cheap, cheap.  All you need is endurance to look through the crowded racks and a hunger for the unfathomably low prices.  (Although, after you buy high end slacks for $10 a pop, it feels even more criminal to be charged $120 for them in a mall store - hence, beware that Clothes Mentor will rapidly erode your already low tolerance for buying full price items.)

But I digress.  The Things in my apartment are a bit different than clothes or mall shopping or resale stores that only narrowly allow me to opt out of fueling the oppressive sweatshop industry.  (Buying second hand is better, but in no way perfect...cheap Banana Republic is still, sadly, Banana Republic....but seriously, y'all!  Pants for $10!!)

The Things in my apartment are furnishings I've acquired in part to make my home more homely.  They have both a utilitarian value and a chosen aesthetic.  All together, they 'represent' me, or whatever.  And for three years, they've more or less remained constant.  My dresser has dutifully held my clothes.  My bookshelves have lovingly buckled under my books.  My toaster has cheerfully toasted my toast (with the exception of the time I ran the toaster and the microwave at the same time and blew the fuse).

Due to high gas prices and U-haul's low mileage, however, my partner and I have decided it is best to Do Away with the Things.  I am taking this far better than she is - somehow she is more attached to me being attached to my Things than I am actually attached to my Things.  After a moment of, "what?! not my Thiiiiiiings!," I was pretty much over it, taking photos and making a Picasa page to send a mass email to about 120 graduate students advertising my wares.

Surprisingly, demand was high, and now the Things are departing, slowly, a few at a time.  The other day was the first big batch - a toaster, a knife block, a floor lamp, and my laundry hamper.  Even though I rarely used the floor lamp, I keep turning around from my desk and wonder why it is so empty behind me.  In a few hours, my six foot bookcase and rolling kitchen island will be leaving me.  While I know there is probably some part of me somewhere that feels a little sad to let things go - a little pinch as I load them in the back of someone else's trunk - mostly I just feel lighter.  "Good," I think every time something goes, "now I won't have to post that on Craigslist!"

Maybe the reality of having fewer Things will settle in later, but I doubt it.  Letting them go is perhaps the best way to realize how unimportant they really are.  In some ways, I feel like they hold the energy of the past three years and perhaps should stay here, anyway, so I can make a clean break of it.  It's always nice to give your Things to someone who is really excited about them, so your life can end just like Toy Story 3.  But I also realize that, as the Things go and leave empty spaces where they once stalwartly stood, I don't actually feel more empty.  Fewer Things means fewer worries.

And pretty soon I'll probably have to get more Things to replace the Things I'm letting go of now.  (I'd like to say I can live without a dresser, but who am I kidding?  I reiterate, I'm no Gandhi.)  But for the moment, I feel very lucky to have the opportunity to de-Thing.  It is a rare opportunity and a beautiful lesson about consumption, about importance, and about meaning.  So right now, I am just going to try to embrace this period between Thingyness, that quieter, less-cluttered, lighter, more open space when my love and attention and attachment can be devoted to the Things people that really matter.