“I don’t buy it at all, life’s a miracle short if it ain’t got feedback wall-to-wall. ”
I started the blog entry below in July, two months after May’s entry. It’s September. Two more months later. I’m using my parents’ visits, my summer excursions to Canada and Alaska, and anything else I can think of to excuse the delay. I was also busy having anxiety attacks.
JULY
This minimalism thing is hell. I’ve not been able to write about it for the last two months because, according to most mainstream literature on the practice and art of minimalism, minimizing one’s possessions is freeing, a cathartic experience, an event of epic Wow-I-Can-Do-Anything-Now-ness. But, for me, it’s hell.
(OK, I realize it's not really hell. Not in the strictest use of the word. Not even in the somewhat looser use of the word. But, whatever. It's my blog.)
It didn’t start out hellish. One month, two months, almost three months in were relatively hell-free. Well, there was a small handful of hell when friends said they were no longer going to visit if I no longer have chairs for them to sit on. But, whatever. I can hang with that low level kind of hell.
Hell arrived after I’d gotten rid of all the extra pens, the unread books, and the Maybe-One-Day-If-I’m-Ever-Invited-To-An-Awards-Ceremony shoes. It arrived in a 12x12 Cost Plus decorative wicker storage basket filled with "personal items." Then, in a collection of 12” singles on vinyl.
It arrived in taped-together vertical blinds for the living room window and a set of ceramic coffee mugs made from local, native mud (whatever that means) and a year-old cell phone with a few more glitches than the new one.
The Alaska Distraction. (My view of the Hubbard Glacier from the bow of the Amsterdam. Yeah, it was pretty cool. And anxiety-free. Bonus!)
SEPTEMBER
As the decisions got harder, I got more emotional. The entertainment value–the fun of the challenge–dissipated. And once thoroughly in the throes of emptying my nest, clarity and certainty also dissipated.
In addition to being wowed by how little I could live without, I was wowed by how much I started to loath the idea of continuing to unload. My daily routine began to include a staring contest between me and my exes, me and my resume, me and my money, me and my resources, me and my desires, me and my bullshit, me and me. There was a lot of I-Don’t-Want-To-Think-About-This-Now-ness and a lot of I-Can’t-Breathe-You’re-Going-To-Be-OK-I-Can’t-Breathe-You’re-Going-To-Be-OK-ness kicking around my apartment kicking my ass.
The last thing I wanted to do was write. Thank God my parents came to visit, and relieved me of more painful decision-making. Whew! No need to get rid of the futon. No need to write about why getting rid of the futon incites anxiety. No need to think about anything other than how to make one bathroom work for two parents and their adult daughter.
After the fun of the experiment started to recede, and before my parents’ arrival, I found myself wanting it all to spontaneously combust. If the earth happened to open up and swallow my apartment and all of its contents (Not my cats! Save my cats!) in one galvanizing gulp, that would also be most welcome. Maybe it was just time to move. Trip time?
Cats on a futon.
After my parents’ departure, and before I revisited this blog entry, I found myself considering that there was something else going on in my apartment (um, read: me), something else I couldn’t yet see. I wondered if it was in plain site, and whether or not my fixation with whether or not to keep the waffle maker blinded me to it. Had the removal of an additional 455 items since The Minimalism Game revealed something underneath it all after all?
Then, I felt it. I smelled it. Eventually, I saw its shadow creeping around a corner. EW!
Decisions-Not-Made and Decisions-Made-But-Not-Executed fill the rooms of my home now. Not the decisions about stuff, but the decisions about stuff. They are the last box I need to go through, the real Just-In-Cases I can no longer ignore.
That’s the shit I really don’t want to think about, the real shit that stops my breath. But what else is there when there is nothing else to clean, nothing else to organize, nothing else to hide behind? Nothing.
Well, almost nothing.
No, it's not really hell. But it's a much more dangerous ride than I could have imagined. (In a Not-Really-Dangerous-Considering-It's-Only-Minimalism kind-of-way.) But you know what they say. And by "they" I mean Meat Beat Manifesto:
“I’ll take you for a ride, but you won’t get your money back.”
Jack Dangers, MBM