Less is More

My journey making concious choices.  

[essentialsuzie-blog]

Decision Fatigue is Real Ya’ll

Ask me how I know?  Everyday we make thousands of decisions.  It is estimated that the average person makes 35,000 decisions a day!  That seem excessive but it’s not.  You start with deciding to get out of bed decided how to wear your hair, what clothes you’ll wear, what shoes you’ll wear, what to eat for breakfast. Do you want Cinnamon Toast Crunch or do you want Cookie Crisp? All day long your brain is making decisions.  When you are in marketing, decisions never stop.  I am exhausted and stressed out about what to wear to work everyday much less deciding what font I want on the campaign ad. I would try something on only to pull it off and move on to the next thing. It never ended which also made me late to several events.  

One night I was on Pinterest and something came across about a capsule wardrobe.  I was intrigued.  The basis of the capsule wardrobe was to only have items in your closet that mixed and matched with other items and to have a smaller amount of clothes.  That was cool then I found a post on minimalism.  I had heard about minimalism and I conjured images of Art gallery owners in black Prada suits and perfectly straight sleek blonde bobs and the Karl Lagerfelds of the world.  I kept reading and the more I read, the more I was intrigued.  The message was simply living with less gives you more. Then I found the Parisian wardrobe which was simple. 5 or 10 essential items to be mixed and matched. Think Audrey Hepburn.  It was a little extreme but I decided enough was enough.  

I took everything from my closet and just went HAM.  Anything I didn’t like initially, it went.  Anything with blemishes, gone.  I took out everything that I had not worn in 2-3 years.  I had just went to Target and bought clothes in patterns and colors.  Those, I decided had to go back and be exchanged for more “essential” type clothing.  It was emotional, it was exhausting and it was awesome.  I didn’t throw anything away.  I placed them in another closet to live for 3 months.  If I don’t retrieve them after 3 months..gone.  

Here is my closet before.  Be nice.

And here is my closet now.  It’s been 4 weeks and it still looks like this and brings me joy.

I didn’t have everything I should have and the quality I should have so I have been obtaining those items piece by piece.  That’s another post.  Ciao!

[essentialsuzie-blog]

OMFG FU Stress and the Horse You Rode In On!

I have a problem.  My problem is I don’t know how to let go of stress and the thing that caused the stress.   The problem is to a point where I ended up in the ER with chest pain.  Not the heart kind but close to the heart.  I have Costochondritis.  What the hell is that?  The thing is once you have it, you’ll always have it.  What it feels like is someone is denying you breath.  You cannot take a deep breath or someone will twist a knife in your chest each time you do.  So you take short shallow breaths which also is complicated because I have asthma.  Great...but wait there’s more!  On top of all that, I have ADHD, I’m bipolar which also means I have a touch of OCD.  Awesome combo.  Costo is inflamed rib cartilage but usually only affects the upper ribs which is why some people think it’s their heart.  It’s not.  Costo is different for everyone.  Some have mild pain and some have OMFG I feel like I might die pain.  Guess which I had.  I had the OMFG pain.  I go to the ER, first thing..EKG which is fine, then blood, then x-rays then more blood then more x-rays.  What I’m told is that it’s caused by lots of things but a main cause is STRESS.  Awesome.  I have a demanding job which takes alot out of me and has me going in 80 directions at the same time.  Avoid stress as much as possible she says.  Are you Fing kidding me?  How? What? Who? Why? Where? Tell me how to avoid work stress Doc?   Oh, guess you can’t really avoid work huh?  Try Yoga. Oh and did I forget to mention I also have Depression so YAY ME!

[essentialsuzie-blog]

You Can’t Take It With You It’s Just Stuff

What happened to my sister’s things that she accumulated?  They were given away or donated to Goodwill.  The things she once found joy in meant nothing in the end.  It was just stuff.

What happened to my Dad’s collections he curated or rather hoarded when he passed?  They were sorted and trashed and divided, sold and donated.  Both my sister and my dad’s possessions met the same fate.  It was just stuff.

Of course there were a few things that brought back memories or were items that will be passed on to family and future generations hopefully.

I however, hoarded all their things that were in my possession again scared that if I let one thing leave my house then their memory would slowly piece by piece go along with the stuff.

It wasn’t until I visited Dallas Contemporary Museum to view the Bruce Weber exhibit did I find the truth.  Their were three artists exhibits going on.  One artists was Laercio Redondo.  Redondo’s exhibit “The Glass House” caught my attention.  It was a mixed media piece, a film that was looping.  

The film follows two separate visits to the house.  They say art is in the eye of the beholder so this may not be what the artist intended to be interpreted at all.  To me,  it showed  what meaning our things have once we are gone.  One soon after the architect passes and 10 years later when the house in under restoration. all her items are still in the house since they are turning it to a museum.  The first visit, it was her things.  Her curated style and collections.  

The second visit, it was just stuff. The same feeling was absent after time. 

In that moment it was clear to me.  It’s just stuff.  Stuff has no meaning, memories have meaning and are what you leave behind for loved ones.

[essentialsuzie-blog]

The Collector

This is my old bedroom at my parents house.  Most parents would turn it into a study or even a home gym.  Mine turned it into my dad’s museum.

After my dad passed my mom started going through his things and was overwhelmed.  She called me to help clear it out.  He collected things he liked. The dream catcher is a symbol of his Cherokee heritage. The deer head wasn’t even a deer he shot, he bought it at a garage sale. The room was filled with car parts, 2 ladders, weed eaters, furniture, old fans, old gas heaters, antiques, tools and random novelty decor like that NASCAR clock hanging on the edge of the door frame.  It didn’t bother me or even hit me that this was wrong because I think I inherited this trait from him. He never threw anything out or got rid of anything.

This is after we cleared it out. The sheet was removed and there lie a whole other room of stuff and a closet that was filled as well.  Still didn’t hit me that this was strange or wrong.  You can see a stuffed pheasant ‘s wing in the left frame, a dolly, numerous containers of oil, a toolbox that my nephew is sitting on, the art on the wall was from a garage sale when I was 4.  It didn’t go with anything, it was just there.  Fishing rods and fishing tackle fill the other room along with old appliances, bedding, a bed frame, air compressors, paint guns and their working washer and dryer.  

Still didn’t seem odd to me.  It was his stuff and that was all that mattered.

[essentialsuzie-blog]

How it started

After my sister died 6 years ago, I held onto everything I had that she ever touched for fear I would lose the memory of her.  Fast forward 4 years later and my dad dies within 2 weeks of being diagnosed with cancer in the ER.  Again, I held onto his stuff because I thought it was like I was holding onto him and if I didn't hoard all these things, I would lose the memory of him too.  My mom’s way of dealing with my dad’s death was to give away his things which meant the majority came to me.  I had all his cowboy boots, longhorns.  Not the school ACTUAL LONGHORNS.  The point is if it was his I kept it.  I kept a school project my sister did for my nephew.  The idea of getting rid of anything at all meant I was getting rid of them..so I thought.