“Why the obsession with worldly possessions? When it’s your time to go, they have to stay behind, so pack light.” ~ Alex Morritt
“Anything that costs you more hours of effort or worry than it brings you hours of enjoyment is a candidate for downsizing.”~Jonathan Lockwood
It was like taking off a too-hot parka. Like handing an overstuffed suitcase to a Skycap. Like finishing an exam.
That’s what it felt like eight years ago when Rick and I sold our last house (and by last, I mean final house) and nearly everything in it. I thought the process of downsizing would make me feel melancholy, but instead, I felt like I had unburdened myself of stuff, stuff I didn’t need, stuff I had forgotten I had, stuff I couldn’t imagine why I’d bought or kept.
All I felt when we sold our six-piece white lacquer bedroom was relief. We sold thousands of pounds of furniture: four couches, three coffee tables, two desks, one grandfather clock, dozens of lamps, a church pew, lawn furniture, bookcases, two refrigerators, the odd ottoman . . . When it was carried out our front door, I felt like I had lost weight, but I couldn’t be sure. We had sold the bathroom scale.
I felt nothing when the neighbors picked through the tchotchkes from Venice and Seville, and only slightly annoyed when they wanted to bargain. Strangers loved all our thingamabobs and doohickies and whatchamacallits, the flotsam of our long marriage. Gone! Gone! Gone!
I laughed when a little kid bought that huge sombrero (made in China, probably) I carted home from Mexico. And when the five-year-old princess proffered her wrinkled dollar for a sack of my “diamond” costume jewelry? She’ll wear it better than I.
I was delighted when a family, whose kids had Walmart sneakers and homemade haircuts, boxed up the Harvard Classics, and the Funk and Wagnalls yearbooks published in the years the kids were born.
I did swallow hard when I sold the dining room set for $200, the one we bought at Clossons, but that was about money, not sentiment.
The Bentwood rocker in which I had nursed two babies languished at the curb with a sign that said “Free to a Good Home.” I really hoped it did go to a good home, one with babies who needed rocking.
As I pulled down the driveway of our suburban home for the last time, I paused to take stock of that 
stunning contemporary ranch we had built, the venue for showers, retirement parties, book clubs, and even one wedding. I hoped it would always shelter happy families.
Then the fog of nostalgia lifted, and I gazed up that driveway, and I thought, I never have to shovel those 400 feet again.
Even after selling the vast majority of our possessions, we still needed a moving van to take our bed, lamps, clothes, and dishes to our new empty-nesters’ downsized apartment.
My Box Collection
In our car, we transported the priceless junk—the things with no material value that we absolutely couldn’t live without: my box collection, with about fifty little boxes I had collected from around the world; the tiny spoon my daughter ate from, first baby food and then, as a teen, yogurt; opera glasses from Stella, my deceased friend; my dad’s Boy Scout bugle; the fringed leather vest my husband thought looked sexy on me forty-five years ago.
You learn when you embark on a dramatic downsize, that some stuff isn’t just stuff. It holds memories.
While we waited for our new furniture to arrive, we adopted a camper’s make-do attitude.
Moving day is never pretty, even when you move without furniture.
A plastic storage bin doubled as a night stand. Boxes served as tables and ottomans. A Quaker oatmeal box made a serviceable trash can, and we sculpted foil into a colander.
Our red couch, emblematic of our new freedom, was the first piece of new furniture delivered.
We had fun accessorizing our new digs. Rick and I spent endless hours on dueling computers shopping for rugs, lamps, shelves, and side tables. Every decision required consensus. We’d stand side by side at Home Goods contemplating the relative merits of similar, yet different, black bathroom rugs. We shopped together for a trash can, a Kleenex holder, and an umbrella stand.
We had a small unit on the 19th floor of The Edgecliff
As we shopped, we asked questions like we did when we were first married in 1972 and living in a different 1200 square foot apartment, one in the burbs. “Do you like this shade of green?” “Would you like to use the tall dresser or the long one?” “Should we really spend this much?”
After six months, we sat like the contented middle-aged couple we were in matching La-Z-Boy recliners, eating dinner off snack trays, Rick fast-forwarding past commercials on our DVR’d programs as if we had something terribly important to do.
Many people admired us for making what they mistakenly thought was a noble stance against materialism. But the truth is, when we moved, we just started buying more stuff to fill the void.
We bought a new toaster, this time in bright red, a new bedspread, a new couch, a new bathroom scale, new fingertip towels.
As we accumulated more and more stuff, we found we had trouble finding places to put it. So we went to the Container Store, a huge retailer that sells stuff in which to store your stuff. Who knew one needed a box to store your makeup brushes, a crate to corral your sporting equipment, a bin for your ornaments, a handy dispenser/storage caddy for ribbon?
Folks like me like to go to Big Lots and its economy cousins, Family Dollar, 99 Center, the Dollar Store and, in China, the Ten Yen Shop (really). We push big carts shopping for what we don’t need and what we don’t know yet we want, shopping when the goal is quantity, not quality and more serendipitous than intentional.
Here we can buy products that can make the litter pan, toilet, and car smell like coconut cream pie, orange sunrise. or lavender garden.
So hungry we are for retail therapy that we will buy products that clean disposals, dishwashers, and washing machines. It seems like antimicrobial overkill, or at the very least, antiseptic redundancy, to buy products to clean the very appliances designed to clean their contents.
The rush of getting a bargain leads us to load up on cheap Christmas tree-shaped pasta, four leaf clover shaped sandwich cutters, neon bobby pins, shoe laces imprinted with other people’s names, and $3 pregnancy tests. When we walk out, what is it about the bulk and number of bags that makes us feel lifted? Alive? Content? Is there adrenaline in those sacks?
In the pioneer days, people made what they needed. In the nineteenth century, the wife would scrimp and save to buy a bolt of gingham at the general store to sew a year’s worth of dresses to clothe all the females in the home. In the early twentieth century, Americans could order what they needed from Sears and Roebuck or wait for the Wells Fargo Wagon.
But now, in the twenty-first century, we don’t shop for what we need; we shop to find out what we need. We don’t know what we need until we see it. During the holiday shopping season, you discover as you meander down the aisles that you really need a panini maker, a wipes warmer, a vegetable steamer, a wine chiller, a Snuggie.
Americans are famous for excess. We live in big houses. We have big cars. We have big meals and big bottoms. It’s not surprising, then, that we are bloated with stuff. And sometimes that stuff has no emotional weight and no utility. On HGTV, all house hunters comment on granite countertops, swooning if they’re there and lamenting if they’re not. Granite countertops are the benchmark for civilized living. These house hunters’ granite fixation has nothing to do with cooking. Nothing to do with need. It’s about keeping score.
What’s precious or emotionally indispensible is case-specific. I moved my friend Stella four times in the
Stella
last five years of her 95-year life, and what I considered junk—lamps with crystal curlicue thingies hanging from the shades, faded hat boxes, a crazed vintage mirror, a horsehair mattress, an enamel ashtray— she claimed was valuable. After she died, while the family vultures circled, I had her “valuable” possessions appraised by an expert who confirmed that I was right: all her stuff was junk. I felt disloyal as I hauled her treasures down to the dumpster or gave them away to distant cousins Stella didn’t like. When Stella died, her soul departed, as did the soul of her possessions.
Since downsizing, we’ve tried to curtail our consumption. I still enjoy stuff and adore retail therapy. On Sundays, I usually do a four-store stroll at Rookwood Commons: Steinmart; TJMaxx; Home Goods; Pier One. As the store doors part, luring me in, I get a rush, like I’m climbing the first hill of a roller coaster.
But every time I pick up some irresistible piece of merchandise – say, an avocado slicer or a strawberry huller, I ask myself, “Do I really need this? What will I get rid of to make room for this? If I move again, will this kitchen doodad make it to the other side?” If the item meets these criteria, I wait a few days before I make the purchase. If the absence of this object nags me or I start cleaning out drawers to make room for it, then I buy it.
Two years after our first downsize, we moved again, this time to an We moved with most of the stuff we had bought, but we replaced our saggy king size bed with a queen—this seemed more sensible for people who enjoyed being on the move. The bed was a catalyst for a new flurry of shopping together; we needed sheets, pillows, a comforter, a headboard, and a mattress cover.
After 25 years sleeping in a king size bed, this smaller one took some adjustment. For a month, I monitored my position so I would neither roll off my side nor knock Rick off his.
But now the closeness seems about right. And I think, in a way, that’s what all this moving is about.
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As always, I like seeing the world through your wise perception. And now all I can do is take a mental inventory of all the worthless stuff in boxes I haven’t opened in over 20 years. Maybe I should just photograph everything to remember what I once owned and then get rid of all of it.
We did much the same–went from 4000 square feet to 2200, and the next move (which won’t be until well after we kick all the mice out of this place) will to knock off another 1000. We did have to find new stuff that “fit the house” better than our old stuff did, but the stuff is just that — stuff.
We did a first round of downsizing 7 years before we moved out of that last house. I must say, each time you do it, it gets easier and more fun. Thank you so much for reading and responding.
I downsized to a tiny bungalow east of Cleveland almost exactly a year ago. It felt as if I purged and donated and sold and shared – and yet, there are things in the basement, still in boxes, that I obviously have not needed or wanted over this past year. There are totes and more boxes tucked away in my limited cupboards. I actually was pleased to find all my missing winter gloves, hats, and knitted scarves yesterday in one of them. But guess what? I’ve managed to get through most of this winter just fine with the one scarf and one pair of gloves that somehow didn’t make it into that bag. I love recreational shopping. My favorites are Tuesday Morning and Marshall’s and the Dollar Tree, occasionally Big Lots. What is it about accumulating “stuff” that’s so satisfying, so entertaining? I do my best to walk away at least 90% of the time, too. Sandy, I so loved this essay and, obviously, it resonated with me in a big way! Best wishes, and if you’re ever up in Cleveland, there’s an antiques mall I’ll take you to that never fails to engage me for HOURS!
Your reply makes me realize I forgot something in my post–we stored boxes and boxes of photo albums and framed pictures and stuff from my teaching days in my mother-in-law’s basement, and have never needed a thing. Now we’re just too lazy to carry it all up the steps and pitch it. Oh, and Tuesday Morning! A great place to go to find out what you don’t need/really want. Thank you for your response. I would love to take you up on your shopping offer! Thanks for reading and responding. It means so much to me.
Will you come downsize me??
If you give me free reign? Regrettably, I think you need to touch all that stuff yourself to decide what you can let go of. As always, thanks for reading.
Such a great post. I need to do so much downsizing, I’m not sure what holds me back. The sentiment, most likely. Especially after my father passed unexpectedly a few years ago. Somehow it makes it harder to let go of things that he came in contact with. Weird, maybe – but this is a great reminder that things are just things.
I totally understand about not throwing out your dad’s stuff. I kept so many things that my Mom touched–her lipstick, shoes (bronzed baby and high heels) perfume, social security card. Stuff is just stuff, but some stuff has an emotional weight that we need. Thank you for reading and responding.
Hi Sandy! As I mentioned on Facebook, I am a HUGE fan of downsizing–I just call it “Rightsizing” because it was one of the best steps that my husband and I also took to put our life on a great path. There is nothing about it that I consider sacrifice. Instead, we carefully decided what was really most important to us and from there we filled out life with that–not a bunch of stuff. So much better! And I also think it is wonderful for you (and any of us) to write about it and let others know how great it can be. The FREEDOM is a huge key. ~Kathy
Sandy, this is spot-on and print-worthy, which is a problem! I have such an inexplicable attachment to information, even more than I do to decorative delights–and that’s saying a lot. This week I’ve been purging work files from the early 1990’s, and it has been a bittersweet journey. These articles, brochures, memos, and manuals have moved with me from Texas to Georgia to Ohio. I do love filling up my two chic silver mesh trashcans from the Container Store with these now irrelevant items, but decluttering is just the overt objective. In the quiet moments when I’m not berating myself for my info-hoarding, I notice a deepening appreciation for that thirty-something self who devoted herself to her career, rightly or wrongly, who supported wonderful, difficult people caught in no-win work scenarios. That gal had her share of successes, but it was in the process of surviving losses that she gained the skills and resilient spirit her (almost) 60-year-old coach self relies upon. So I’m taking my sweet time with this letting go, and your post has humored and soothed my “save-it” soul.
Although our kids are small still, we had been plotting on building a big fancy house in a few years. This year, we changed our minds and decided to stay in place until the kids are out and then live a more mobile life in early retirement after more intensive downsizing. Renting an apartment in Hawaii 6 months out of the year sounds like a great idea.
Maybe if my husband reads this he’ll see the merit of getting rid of stuff. I’d love to downsize.
I think Henry David Thoreau said it best: “Simplify, simplify, simplify”, but when you collect, that is the hardest thing in the world. I’m getting better at pairing down, being almost 30, but I always go back to the thought that I never know when I’ll need the item in question. Thank youfor sharing.
Sandy, I enjoyed this post! It’s amazing how much effort and money we put into accumulating “stuff” when we were a growing family only to get rid of when we are older! I also am surprised by the items in our house that hold my heartstrings. It’s not the expensive things at all. BTW don’t ask the kids to help…
Loved your post!!! You always have a special way of telling “your stories.” They are so REAL for all of us to relate to!
However, I couldn’t help but think how you will see so many things even more different in about 10 or 15 years. I am at the point in my life where my music box collection and other collections have stopped. I have labels on the back or bottom of things designating who or where I want them to go.
Yes, as life changes…..so do our needs for “stuff.”
Another gem! My husband and I have been half-heartedly de-cluttering the past couple of years. We have too much JUNK! My husband is a veteran Dollar Store/Costco/Sam’s Club bulk shopper and I am a hanger-on of sentimental stuff. (I STILL have the painted clay model Thanksgiving scene my youngest son made in KINDERGARTEN). Yikes! Together, we have a junk-filled home.
My fav line: “We don’t shop for what we need; we shop to find out what we need.” So true!
Inspiring and delightful…words of wisdom to strive for as we contemplate moving and downsizing.
But, then again I was giddy with the garbage bag of buttons and trims you just bestowed upon me this past Sunday! I definitely may need all of those for some future art work or student project!!! I did place them all in a lovely plastic bin. Thanks friend…
I love your frankness, sharp wit, insight. Such a clever wordsmith you are. Nailed one of the nagging dilemmas of our generation. Thoroughly enjoyed. Seems like several monthly magazines would be interested in publishing it.
I reread your piece and enjoyed it again, how you start with disbanding your house/home to accumulating bits and pieces for your apartment. I especially liked the comment, “when Stella died so did the soul of her possessions.” This made me think about great-grandma’s salt and pepper shakers. Many years later my daughter wished she had some as she played with them as a child. I also evaluate when I shop whether I truly need something.