So even though I live in a 400 sq ft apartment and could easily move all my stuff in one 10′ U-Haul truck, I still feel like I have too much crap. I’ve been feeling this way for a while, wanting to get rid of some of my stuff that I wouldn’t take with me if I moved. So I’d start feeling like I wanted to move, but why wait? My coworker quoted some Death Cab lyrics to me last week:
The flames and smoke climbed out of every window
And disappeared with everything that you held dear
And you shed not a single tear for the things that you didn’t need
‘Cause you knew you were finally free
So here’s what I’m doing. I’m throwing out the stuff that, if my place burned down, I wouldn’t miss. “Like Water for Chocolate.” It’s a good book. If my apartment burned down, would I go buy another copy? Nah. Putting it in the “donate” pile. All my paper samples . . . don’t need. I do this fairly often, so it’s not something new. But this is a little drastic. Today I took down the shelves from Ikea that I HAD TO HAVE 6 years ago. Then I was like, What am I going to do with all this stuff that used to be ON the shelf? Some I will keep, most I’ll sell or give to charity. Now in place of the shelves I have a palm-like plant. Eventually I’ll get a hand-me-dowm aquarium.
Here’s the real problem. The pictures you see in Ikea or Design Within (Out of) Reach are all of these zen living rooms with couches and vases and funky lamps but no remote controls for the HD TV that hangs low on the wall over the japanese-inspired table with 2 red cubes on it. No bags of potato chips, no credit card offer envelopes, no piles of clean laundry, no magazine you’re saving for your sister because she’d like one of the articles.
It’s almost as bad as Photoshopping models. Seriously! “I need to have a 24-inch waist and a 37″ inseam and weigh 120, oh! and flawless skin, too,” is about as bad as “I need to have a perfectly designed living room that looks perfect all the damn time with no actual sign that a person might live there. Or dust.”
It’s unattainable without tons of money! And a maid.
Still, I want to try (I wash and moisturize my face so I can have clear skin, too). And since I can’t afford a 1000 sq ft loft and all new furniture, I’ll do what I can afford- getting rid of the stuff that is weighing me down.
The hand-me-down aquarium will be awesome! Super Trooper will be happy and well fed too. You should make the inside of the aquarium look just like the inside of your apt. OR cut out pictures from the design within reach cataloge and laminate them and make them his walls…. BETTER IDEA: If you can’t have your apt look like that, we could make small furniture like in the cataloge and make the aquarium look like the one of those rooms. I know, I’m a genius. No need to clap.
i volunteer to make an aquarium-sized hand-blown bud vase.
i volunteer to make an aquarium-sized hand-blown bud vase.