Recently, after a major change in my personal life, I relocated from a single-family home to a 660-square-foot apartment. Transitions are hardly ever easy. Among all the uncertainty that comes with moving from a large living space to a smaller one is figuring out what to do with all your stuff. It’s a weird predicament to be in, standing inside what is soon to be your former house, surrounded by possessions and knowing that not all of them can come with you.
When I started packing things up, some decisions took all of two seconds. The television was coming with me. So were my clothes, kitchenware, and the handful of pieces of furniture that would actually fit in my new apartment. Easy.
After that, though? That’s when the real decisions get made.
I made three piles to help me decide what to take with me
I found myself standing in the middle of the room holding things that had somehow survived every move I’d ever made. Empty iPhone boxes? Straight into the trash. Old moto jacket? That one stayed in my hands for a long bit while I tried to decide whether I still liked it or just liked the version of myself who used to wear it.
Before long, I’d created three piles: keep, donate, and one more — the one that kept growing, and growing, and growing. The pile of “indecidables.”
As a kid, we had a very old-school, oversize yellow Tupperware bowl that served primarily as our popcorn bowl, but my mom used it at Christmastime to store her cookies. When I tell you this bowl is big, I mean you had to carry it with both hands, even as an adult. And I certainly didn’t need it. I also didn’t have a place to store it. It was in and out of the toss pile more times than I care to mention.
Decluttering during the move changed my relationship with possessions
Downsizing is low-key grief. You don’t realize the invisible burden your possessions have been until it’s time to part ways with them. Every box you tape shut is a decision. Every trash bag, a choice.
As I began settling into my new place, I figured I’d miss the stuff I couldn’t keep. What really surprised me, though, was how quickly it all kind of faded from my consciousness. It made me wonder whether I’d been hanging onto all of it for all those years because I needed it, or because I hadn’t bothered to stop to ask if I still did.
Courtesy of Jesse Gormley
A few weeks after moving in, I needed my drill to put something together. After searching high and low for the thing, I came to the horrifying realization that somewhere along the way, during my downsizing, the drill had either been tossed or donated. I was pretty annoyed with myself at first, wondering what other important things hadn’t made it to the new place.
The weird thing is, other than the drill, I couldn’t recall a single other item that I actually missed. I guess I’d thought of all my stuff as just that: one big collective item. When I tried to break that image down into individual possessions, I began to realize that maybe none of it was nearly as important as I’d always thought.
Still, though, I did end up grabbing that oversize Tupperware bowl as I was leaving. The thing is, I can’t really point to a single defining memory associated with it. It wasn’t the bowl from my birthday party or the one my mom always mixed cookie dough in, or anything like that. It was simply…there. Filled with popcorn during movie nights. Filled with Christmas cookies every December. It had been part of the background of my life for so long that leaving it behind felt stranger than finding a place for it in my new apartment.
However, I still don’t know where to keep it. It doesn’t fit comfortably in any cabinet, so it wanders from shelf to countertop to pantry. But every time I see it, I’m reminded that not every possession earns its place because it’s useful. Some earn it simply because they’ve quietly been with us for the whole time.
