Stairway To Minimalism : Freeing Myself, One Item At A Time
Stairway To Minimalism : Freeing Myself, One Item At A Time Minimalism—Don’t know what it's more–Liberating or Terrifying More often than not, it’s both. There’s a five-dollar Ganesha sitting elegantly in my living room. I love how His beautifully carved brown eyes taper downwards and inwards, towards His face. I believe his eyes can gauge the dust piling up on my old guitar set in a corner, where sunlight touches half its fret every morning; I guess they wish each other “good morning” as a ritual. The care-free gaze of the guitar brings me to shame as I look back at it – the shiny black thing has been sitting there with a missing string and self-esteem as if it were waiting for me to play “fix you”; I can feel its low self-worth pile over all the years of accumulating dust and mites, and zero fucks given. But I want to Clut. Messy is my second name. Not dirty messy. But artsy messy. I am someone who would have the rooms looking spic and span, but the storage room looking a complete un-breathable mess. I like clutter. I LOVE hoarding. I am not ashamed of anything I’ve said above. Because I don’t think it’s wrong. There are accessories and clothes I haven’t worn in years but I’d wear them someday because they’re either “too pretty” or “too expensive” or sometimes both. Some of them are also “memories I want to save till eternity”. Not like I have looked at them in years, but I know I will, someday. Store-rage problems. I realise it was time to re-arrange the mom jeans apart from the boyfriend and the cigarette ones and also make a little space in the upper shelf to add the brand new ones; I blatantly gaze at my wardrobe in a kitchen shelf(since my bedroom ran out of any more space). The upper shelf, however, had over two dozen Keventers’ empty glass bottles which were cute, and somewhat useful in storing shakes, so no way the jeans were making way in the upper shelf. What was I going to do? I had to get rid of something. Hoarding you back? “Cindy, you’re just going overboard with the packing,” while I was half-listening to Mia discussing our checklist for Switzerland as much as ranting about how much luggage I was packing, I was also looking up the extra luggage charges without discussing with her because I don’t think she understands travel fashion as much as I do—I obviously needed matching gumboots to suit all my outfits. I realized something was holding(read hoarding) me back when I couldn’t sleep for several nights because I did not want to miss out on a single trip essential. “We have perceived a connection among a sleeping disorder and psychological wellness conditions like anxiety and depression, another is arising in research: hoarding,” comments Dr Parth Nagda (MD, Neuro-Psychiatry, Mumbai). Let it go, let it go. Inconsolable, I wept, for this was not the first time it was getting on to me. It had to stop. I had to stop. Hoarding. The accumulating dust on the clutter I had saved through the years, the space it occupied, the limitless attachments to redundant material, the love for keeping upbeat with new stuff and hoarding more of it— I was going to let it all go. “A hoarding disorder arises due to the perceived need to save them and distress associated with the thoughts of discarding them. The disadvantages could be mental and/or physical,” Dr Nagda unfolds as he spells out the mental disadvantages which range from anxiety, stress, and triggers causing them, which could be something like unable to finding stuff during an emergency, fear or embarrassment of having guests over and not having enough to indecisiveness about where to place things, while physical disadvantages which could include bug/insect infestations, allergy-inducing fungus moulds, risks of tripping, among others. Something gave me a feeling that I was sufficient, the materials did not define who I was. The very thought of me being able to buy stuff when I really needed it was really comforting. The process of liberation was about to start, I was about to be a part of something meaningful, something that was going to arrange my life, forever. Freeing myself, one item at a time I started compartmentalizing my hoardings into systematic bifurcations: Old cassettes, physical copies of ample books I loved, old photographs, memories, air tickets, theatre tickets, stamps, letters, wedding card were going to be saved in a digital vault so my home started looking clean again. Clothes I haven’t worn in three years or more, I was going to donate to give space. I would treat myself a new dress for every five dresses I gave up. My wardrobe was starting to look neat and it was liberating. Rewards are encouraging that way. “Focus on one room of the house and in that room, one area for starting, such as the bathroom, the wardrobe etc,” Dr Nagda affirms that it’s easier to start small. Bottles, plastic, metal trash that I thought could be of some use some day made way out of my house for good. I started adopting the idea of renting – I joined a toy library for my child, an adult’s library for myself(for the love of physical copies), and also expensive clothes for the sheer love of wearing plush clothes. I am still trying to get there, but I breathe freely now; a lost mug or a keychain doesn’t sky-rocket my blood pressure levels anymore. Read the full article