10 Reasons to Get Rid of It

Exploring Lessons from Moving Across The World

The year I turned 40, I spent 7 months cleaning out my family home in the suburbs of Philadelphia.

A single family ranch built in 1961, it wasn’t a large house, but it did have what makes American homes in the northeast a real “thing:” a basement. And a garage. And an attic.

The attic held only a few big boxes of Christmas decorations and the four trees I insisted on putting up each year.

But every other space was filled. Each room. Each of the many closets. The basement. The garage. I would never have classified my family as having a lot of “stuff.” We had the normal amount of it. We could park both cars in the garage without having to walk around anything to get to the door. Everything fit on neat shelves lining the walls of the basement. There were no excess piles anywhere.

But then.

We decided to move to a different country.

And suddenly…

Stuff.

So much of it.

Friends. I’ll say it again. I spent a solid 7 months using each day to steadily go through everything.

What once seemed like an asset - so much storage space! - became a slow and tedious punishment of epic proportions. I was imprisoned by my own belongings. Every single gift, purchase, hand-me-down, and physical acquisition that I picked up to determine its fate was like a gut punch.

I felt like a literal old lady who lived with her shoes.

When I say that, at the end of each week, for 7 months, I had sold, discarded, donated, the equivalent of a bag of stuff a day… I’m not exaggerating.

Cleaning out an entire life, including the life of your partner, and the tiny lives of your 2 kids - raised by an older Millennial mother who is sentimental and therefore had already accumulated enough toys and mementos to fill 2 lifetimes instead of 3 and 6 years (Me. It’s me. I was the problem!)… Well, let’s just say I’m still mildly traumatized by the experience.

At the end, because I have amazing friends all over the world, we were literally throwing things into the back of pickup trucks to be hauled off to private dumpsters, just days before boarding the plane to our new lives in Korea.

“Look how much stuff in our house was literal trash,” I said to my husband at the time.

At some point during all of this, I sat at my dining room table / desk / work space / lifeguard post for my toddlers / family meal location to have a weekly virtual session with my therapist.

I remember thinking: “I don’t have too much to talk about today.” <insert laugh track>

“Oh, nothing. Just cleaning out some stuff,” I said to her.

We would go on to have one of my most memorable therapy sessions wherein we discussed the deeper meaning behind why I keep things… why I can’t let go of some of the physical stuff that apparently, was building and illustrating a specific narrative about my life… to me.

(I won’t put too fine a point on this, but it is a life where, for 40 years, I felt like I was building a narrative on top of an unknown origin story.)

At one point, after lamenting that I understood how silly it is to hold on to a letter or a keychain from middle school, but also emotionally not wanting to part with it, my therapist and I got into it.

I recall this very specific exchange:

My Therapist: What will happen if you throw it away?

Me: <Pause> <Pause> If I throw it away, then there is no possibility that I will come across it every 3 to 5 years when I’m organizing my belongings. Which means I won’t have the 2-seconds of a feel-good moment that makes me smile every time I rediscover it.

MT: And why do you feel afraid of that possibility?

Me: That memory may be lost forever.

MT: … And why is it important to remember?

Me: … because it says something that I still have the friendships associated with these mementos 25+ years later.

She went on to get me to a place of understanding:

I don’t need to prove to myself that I’m a good friend or a good person or a good ____. The reality of the lasting, present-day relationships in my life can be enough evidence of my worth. I no longer need to hold on to the tangible things that tell the tale. I can be (am?) confident and secure enough in the relationships, people, moments, work, and memories in my life that are meaningful to ME… Enough so that getting rid of the physical items associated with them are no longer necessary for my survival… no matter how much they make me feel emotionally grounded knowing they are in storage.

Stuff.

Things.

They no longer need to be physical representations that validate my worth.

So! Goodbye, old letters from childhood pen pals. Goodbye, beaded keychain from the 8th grade and tiny, empty liquor bottles from my first drinks in Germany as a teenager. Goodbye, binders of college essays and books I’ll never read again. Goodbye, double-closet full of dresses I’ve been collecting from every season, occasion, and pants size from the past 20 years. Goodbye, toys and outfits for my kids that I thought, “I’d just hold on to in case they wanted to have them for their kid one day… in 30 years.” Yikes. Goodbye to wall hangings, furniture, “extra” __ <fill in the blank> of all the things we hold on to “just in case we need it” one day.

When you have to move across the world and only have a certain monetary allowance for how much you can ship… and how much you can bring… by weight and size… and the rest you have to pay to store in a temperature controlled space with a monthly fee… You learn a thing or two about - well, stuff.

Like your own personal Korean Marie Kondo (having never read or watched any of her stuff), here’s what I learned.

When you’re looking around your space, use a healthy combination of the following guidelines, and don’t keep it:

1. If you can replace it in 20 minutes and/or for under $20

2. Just because it was a gift

3. Because your mom/ aunt/ grandmother/ dad/ sibling/ other relative finds it to have sentimental value but didn’t want it taking up space in their house..

4. JUST because you have the space for it (It’s okay to have a bare closet or empty storage space in your home. I promise.)

5. If, when they find it in your belongings after you’re dead they say, “Why the heck did s/he keep this?” (Things with true familial value, genuine family heirlooms, will have meaning beyond simply what it means to you. i.e. My keychain from 8th grade will not be important to my grandkids. A grandfather’s WWII journal will!)

6. If you haven’t thought of it in over a year

7. If you have a duplicate

8. If it’s not serving a specific function that you use regularly

9. Sure, if it doesn’t bring you joy, or - worse - if it makes you unhappy every time you see it

10. … and finally, if it wouldn’t make “the cut” if you were paying to store or ship it when moving your life - indefinitely - across the world.

Today, as I write this, I live in a 500 square-foot space with some bonus storage in a loft. I had to start over in Korea, filling a tiny kitchen (read: an 8 x 3 foot space filled with some shelves, a sink, over-the-sink drying rack, cabinets, and a gas stove top), living room just big enough for a love seat, a coffee table (that serves as my kitchen table), and a TV stand, some bookshelves, and two tiny bedrooms.

It’s honestly astounding how much “stuff” I’ve already collected in the 1.5 years I’ve lived in it.

You find out pretty quickly what is actually necessary to have in daily life. I’m living in an actual tiny home.

I need my slow cooker and tiny rice maker, my coffee pot and a microwave that doubles as a toaster oven (ovens aren’t a thing in Korea). I need my omelet pan (I eat like 6 eggs a day) and four good coffee mugs that I choose depending on my mood. I need my electric blanket and some great bedding for my little sanctuary. The things I have: I use and truly bring me joy. I don’t have a lot of money, but I have heavy-duty gold cutlery that I use several times a day and makes me happy (cheap, flimsy forks, though cheaper, would have made me sad every time I pulled one out of the utensil holder).

I probably don’t need all of my plants or the many books I’ve already collected (or as many clothes). But hey, we all need a vice or two.

Here’s what I want to say.

In the journey of discovering “we are enough,” you are.

You are worthy and enough.

Without the things. Outside of some pictures (that you can digitize) and journals, family heirlooms (really - actual heirlooms, not your grandmother’s plastic drinking cups), and perhaps an old trinket that means something to you that can’t be replaced in 20 minutes for $20, you don’t need any of it to validate or confirm your story.

None of it matters when what we’re all really looking for in life is connection and belonging. And if someone won’t hold a meaningful place in your life without the stuff you have, chances are, they’re not someone who should be in your life to begin with.

You’re enough and you’re worthy without any “thing” creating a narrative to confirm it. I promise.

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