From reading many minimalist blogs, I'm learning that a lot of minimalists want to travel. They want to be able to travel lightly. They want to see the world, live life, not live through possessions. Then I realized, that same mindset it what turned me on to minimalism.
I'm 19 years old and I've never lived somewhere longer than 4 years. I've lived in 5 states, 13 houses, gone to 11 schools. I've moved many times. Moving possessions that many times can take a toll on you. Obviously I wasn't old enough to pack for about half the moves. But I've done it enough times for me to know that we as a family have too much crap.
My move from Louisiana to Georgia was somewhat traumatic for me. I was in 10th grade (the summer after about to start my junior year) and we really needed to move. I was definitely happy to move (I hated Louisiana), but I was not happy to pack. Of course I packed my bedroom very quickly and kept only my most frequently used items out. As for the rest of the house, nobody wanted to do it. I have a family that consists of my mom, my step-dad who is a over the road truck driver and only comes home a few times a month, my sister and my brother. So since Ray, my step-dad, was on the road, there was only my mom and the kids to do all the packing. We didn't really start packing until my step-dad came home to actually move us. He was fuming when we found out none of us had packed the house. There was yelling, screaming, rash decisions being made. We ended up throwing out probably 1/8 of our possessions out to the road. The entire curb of our house was full with stuff, trash as well as things that weren't.
It was very rough. We had about 2 days to get the stuffed house packed. Once we were done, we filled an ENTIRE semi truck. All the way to the door. If that gives you any idea of how much stuff we have. That stuff is still sitting around my garage, storage unit, and spare rooms. But that's another story.
Once we left, I couldn't be happier. We were on our way to starting our lives new again. All we owned in a [giant] truck behind us. I love moving.
One thing I love about moving is living off of basics. Since your life is in boxes, you don't know where everything is and are forced to use only what you need or buy disposables (utensils). That's the best. Having a duffel bag of clothes, necessary toiletries, usually only a laptop or something for entertainment. It kind of gives you a vacation from all of your things. It lets you forget temporarily that you don't have a house full of possessions. Living like that is really what got me going on minimalism. I didn't know that's what it was called at the time. I just knew I loved living with only what you need and love.
I knew I liked living like this, but never really did anything about it until I moved into my next house a few months later that was probably half a mile down the road (where I currently live). The first house was a rental until we could actually buy one. This is my fourth year living in this house. I haven't really started getting rid of things until the last 2 years. But I haven't stopped since, and I love it.
Moving all those times taught me something. Living with less makes moving a lot easier. I haven't done that, but I'm assuming it would. lol. I just want to be free of clutter, free of extra weight, be able to move on a dime, know everything I have. Moving has a lot to do with me wanting to be a minimalist.
Lauren
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