Are you paying for your useless baggage?

Posted on November 22, 2010 8 Comments

Today I attempted a mini-purge of my apartment. Just a few easy areas – mostly bookcases, nothing too difficult. I don’t have the time to do a major purge, so I do smaller ones throughout the year – closets, bookcases, bathroom cabinets, medicine cabinets – on a rotating basis. My closet space is next to nothing and my apartment is “cozy” so it’s important to keep the space relatively clutter-free (although I admit, my closets look like a game of Tetris sometimes).

I think a lot of people assume when they run out of space, they need more. A bigger apartment, a condo with a dining room, a starter home, a McMansion, and more. It’s true that most days I daydream about having tons more space – a basement, a yard, in-home laundy, storage closets, a pantry … sigh. But we’ve been in the same apartment for about six years now because the rent is cheap and it’s allowing me to save, and because we’re still a one-income household until my man-friend (and roommate) graduates and hopefully finds a job. (Sidenote: can we think of a better word for “domestic partner” now that apparently everyone is shacking up?) It wouldn’t be smart to buy a house until we both are gainfully employed, no matter how enticing the market.

So tonight, the purging of a few cluttered spaces began. Purging is an effective reminder about how little you actually need to live. And for me, an interesting look into the making of poor decisions. For instance, today I found a small set of wooden puzzles with no directions sitting on a shelf, untouched since probably the day after we opened it. A Polaroid mini camera with “sticky photos” that was all the rage in 1990-something and promptly forgotten about. VHS copies of “The Man in the Moon,” “Ever After,” “The Basketball Diaries,” “Jerry Maguire,” and more. Ah, life in the 90’s. Hanging around my apartment in 2010, taking up space that I don’t have, going unnoticed every day.

And while purging is a nice way to rid my place of extra baggage I don’t want to pay rent to store, it more importantly makes me think about purchases I might make in the future. When I’m shopping, I’m prone to buy the latest, greatest thing – ooh! Look at that “As seen on TV” turbie towel! And on sale two for one! – I need to think twice about how often I’ll actually use that purchase and what will happen to it when I’m done. Can I pass it along? Can I recycle it? Or, like the wooden puzzles, if I lose the directions, will the whole piece be worthless?

I’m reminded of a trip I took to Neah Bay in Washington State a few years ago. We visited a history museum of the Makah Tribe, where we stepped into a reconstructed version of an old family home. The Makah lived in the Pacific Northwest much longer than our modern civilization has. But, the guide pointed out, there’s virtually no trace of the village today. It’s not because the civilization wasn’t complex, or was short-lived. The materials they built with degraded naturally; they weren’t designed to outlast their society. Of course, I’m not advocating that we should all live in crude shelters. It just makes me wonder what will happen to all the “stuff” I own that was once cool … the Polaroid camera sat perfectly preserved nearly 10 years after its purchase, neatly tucked into a wicker basket. Sure I’m giving to GoodWill in hopes that it will brighten a child’s day, but what happens after that?

The next time you’re tempted to buy a non-essential purchase, think about where it will sit in your home. Is this something you want to pay rent for? Is this worth your valuable space? What will happen to it after you’re done? Here’s to hoping all our purges get smaller – and we get a little more use out of our space!

Category: Life
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