It’s 12:30 am on July 17th, and I’m rearranging my closet and throwing stuff away. If you knew me, you know I’m usually in bed by 9. So here is what happened…
You even have those night when you just can’t for the life of you go to sleep? Lay there for hours tossing and turning and getting nowhere?
from: homedesigndecorating.com
I assume it happens to everyone now and then as it does to me, and it was one of the horrible nights. I just couldn’t sleep so finally I grabbed my iPad and started doing some reading. I settled on pondering my potential 1 year-ish relocation and what my apartment might look when I get there. So I started Googling “minimalist apartment” and “minimalist apartment studio” and variations on the themes. I found a lot of great stuff but one gem I came across is a blog post titled, “Dr. O’s One Room Minimalist Living” (fair warning, it does have mature language) from the Minimalist Packrat.
I read the entire post and it really reminded me of when I helped a professor friend of mine to move when I was going to college in Portland at Multnomah Bible College. He was probably in his 50′s, Dr. Gary Friesen was a friend of mine. I recall that all of his possessions fit in a pickup truck and a sedan. When I grew up, we moved every 4 or 5 years since my dad worked for the Federal Government, and when we did, a giant moving truck rolled up, after two days of a few dudes going through our house, it was all in boxes that truck. Our family of 4 didn’t take up the entire semi-trailer, but it took a sizable percentage. So Dr. Friesen’s move was in stark contrast to what I was used to, and it had an impression on me and I’ve thought of it often through the years and admired that he intentionally lives with less. To top if off, he said most of it he only hung onto because it had sentimental value.
So now we come back to Dr. O. from the blog post. He stated that when he moved he required and everything fit in the car. An admirable goal for sure. But if you read the post, you will read he also has a practical side to his minimalist tenancies. He has a certain dish he makes where he wants his veggie burger to be surrounded by soup but not be at the bottom of a lake of soup. So he has a bowl just for this. I’m reading way more into this than I should, but as I’m on a minimalist journey, prompted by God for reasons I don’t know yet, I just appreciate the simplicity of Dr. O allowing himself that bowl while for all intents and purposes, pretty much every other last thing he has exceedingly small in count and has a purpose. You can’t have too much duplication and keep a cupboard that looks like that.
So why were you up when you should have been sleeping?
So this all led to me getting up out of bed at 12:30 in the morning, inspired by this whole thought process, and continue to whittle down what I have in my room. A little background if you are new, is about a month ago I was struck by an intense desire to lead a simpler life. And one aspect of this is having a lot less stuff. I live with roommates, so I have a room, and totes in the garage. Specifically I had 20 totes in the garage that had been moved from house to apartment to house to storage unit and variations of the previous for numerous years now. I now have 6 totes in the garage, and about 3/5th of the stuff I had in my room.
Bottom line, I’m getting rid of more stuff from my room that at first I thought I couldn’t get rid of. Now after mere weeks, I realize that I don’t need it after all.
Oakley Case
What prompted me to start this post in the first place was my Oakley case. Somewhere around this text is 
a picture of the case that my sunglasses came in when I bought them about a year and a half ago at Fisherman’s Wharf in San Francisco when I was there for a conference. Next to the cast at the sunglasses it is designed to protect. Since buying the sunglasses with a case (or is a case with sunglasses?) I’ve used this case exactly zero times. Yes, they are nice sunglasses. But they are sunglasses. A tool. I certainly don’t want to ruin them, but I also don’t need to put them in a safely deposit box each time I’m not using them, which is what it feels like using this provided case. But being that this case seems to nice, it’s not gone anywhere. It gets moved from place to place in my room as it gets in the way, without a purpose. But as I said, to nice to throw away. Well, I’ve clearly had a change of heart. My Oakley case is saying, “Goodbye cruel world. Goodbye, goodbye, goodbye.”
As I’m new to this ‘stuff reduction’ process. I’m starting to think this is how it works. In about a months’ time, I reduced by about half. But just like I see so many other parallels of what I’m doing and my journey in Christ, I see a parallel here. I wasn’t able to go from completely laden with stuff and the desire for more stuff (lost) to having the most minimal amount of stuff that I absolutely should have and need (perfection). But it’s a journey. I’ll hopefully move closer to perfection most of the time, but at times I’ll trip. But that’s all right, I just realize where I went wrong and correct it and continue the journey. Just like, I suppose, if I’m driving across the country to see my family and I take wrong turn. It’s a major bummer, yep. But the sooner you realize that you went off course, and find your way back to the path, the sooner you arrive.
Now that all made perfect sense in my head. I hope if makes sense in yours as well. :)
UPDATE: As a result of my re-arrangement this morning, I had to stow a few things in the garage. Things 
like work boots that I’m not ready to part with because they come in handy when someone needs help digging holes or unloading a trailer full of brush at the dump. But I don’t need them in my room. Anyway, stuff like that. So I popped open a few of my totes i
n the garage and realized there was nearly a tote full of t-shirts that I couldn’t bear to get rid of when I minimized a month ago. But now I can. An entire small tote of t-shirts headed to the Goodwill. Oh, and I came across this doozie. It probably weighs five pounds and creates the embossing you see. It’s such an awesome gift that I received from my girlfriend when I was in High School. High School! Sorry Jill, I’ve thrown away the embosser. It really was a wonderful gift though. And to everyone else, Jill hand made that bag for it. If you see her, let her know she did a great job.
