As most of you know, I’m weird. So I’m sure it wouldn’t surprise you to know that when I was younger, I had a strange obsession with small spaces and shall we say, “survival” adventures.

I would pack a small backpack with some essentials (Snack Packs, Ring Pops, my portable DVD player…) and find a small closet, nook in the barn, or a nice patch of trees and stay there all day, pretending that was my life and I had to survive. It was weird, but I loved it and it was probably my favorite activity outside of reading and writing.

My favorite spot was this little cubby under a wood bench/table set about the size of a kitchen cupboard. It was one of our old Beagle’s favorite spots too, so sometimes I’d have to kick her out. Definitely not room for two. I don’t know if I was just trying to play Harry Potter or what my deal was, but I’d get all set up with my corner of food and drinks (candy and juice boxes), a corner for entertainment, a corner for clothes, and a corner for sleeping (I could fit a tiny throw pillow in there if I really tried). I even decorated the walls with pictures and drawings.

Basically, I was way ahead of this whole tiny house/minimalism movement happening right now.

To be honest, I love the “less is more” movement. Of course, I’ve loved it hypocritically, as I’ve been having a hard time curbing my shopping craze. But I respect the hell out of people embracing this movement, and embracing it a lot more successfully than myself.

I don’t fantasize living with just the bare essentials, only the things that bring me essential happiness (this is why I loved Marie Kondo’s book, The Magical Art of Tidying Up so much, as did millions of others). I’ve been doing a lot of reading on this topic, devouring anything I can on this philosophy and lifestyle, but after awhile, it all seems to say the same thing: keep only what is essential and brings you joy, get rid of everything else, and stop consuming so much in the first place.

Yet I still read more, because it’s like books on writing. I know how to write (or at least how I like to write) and I know the difficulties of the craft and the publishing world, yet I’m constantly reading books like Bird by Bird (Anne Lamott), The Art of Memoir (Mary Karr), and Big Magic (Elizabeth Gilbert). I’ve loved all of these books dearly, but after a certain point I have to admit to myself: they’re all urging the same thing. That is, to stop procrastinating and actually write something. And by continuing to read what I already know, I’m procrastinating, telling myself, “I’m still researching. I’m still in the first stage. I’m going to do it in a second, promise. I just need to read this first so I’m ready.”

But the thing I need to truly realize is that I’ll never be “ready.” There won’t be a moment when the clouds part and the sun shines through and I rise up, filled with a sudden, overwhelming feeling of clarity and composure. Readiness isn’t going to come over and tap me on the shoulder, saying, “follow me, please. That book you want to write and life you want to live are just right this way.” No. I have to track readiness down and demand it to follow me, whether it wants to or not.

This also applies to the “less is more” thing I can read all of the books on minimalism, de-cluttering, and reducing until my eyes swim, but at some point, I’m going to have to set them down and actually start changing.

So far, I’ve bagged up a good 50% of my clothes, shoes, and accessories. But the problem is, I’ve still been using that dangerous failsafe known as “Mom and Dad’s House.” As soon as I’ve packed something up from my apartment, it takes a trip to my parent’s attic or my childhood bedroom and I say, “I’ll deal with it later.” This is a big mistake. I do have every good intention of going to my parent’s house and clearing away most of my possessions, but I never seem to be able to find the time for it. It would have made a lot more sense, even though it would have made me a lot more anxious, just to take things straight from my apartment to the donation center.

That way, one other thing I wouldn’t have to deal with is one of my parent’s pulling something out of a bag and saying, “Are you sure you want to get rid of this?” It’s hard enough deciding to get rid of your things, but when someone else is second guessing what you’ve chosen to depart with, it makes things so much harder. So in the future, I need to just save myself the trouble and donate things right away.

Another reason I have so much crap piled up in my childhood home is I was a little packrat. I also came from a family of packrats. Every little thing had meaning. Every little thing couldn’t possibly be thrown away. When my room got piled two feet high of crap (which it actually did often, I’ll post a picture when I find them), my dad used to threaten he was going to shovel it all out the window into a dumpster. Now I kind of wish he would have done that. I think it would have been a lot more beneficial for my happiness and sanity in the long run. It certainly would have saved me hours of sifting through crap year after year in the attic. Things I swear I’d thrown away the year before but somehow end up back in my over-flowing monstrosity of a childhood shrine, made up of boxes, bins, and garbage bags.

It’s taken me a long time to grow out of that childhood mindset that every possession is meaningful and necessary. I instilled too much feeling into my possessions, too much life, until it seemed impossible to get rid of anything without feeling like a horrible person. This, coupled with my shopping obsession, made for very cluttered closets.

Another book I really enjoyed reading on the subject was The Joy of Less by Francine Jay. One thing I liked about this book was the way the author discussed detaching ourselves from our things. She went through a series of exercises, such as, if you were moving overseas and could only take so many things, realistically, what would those things be? It seems simple, but was actually extremely helpful in learning how I actually felt about certain things I own. She also focuses on changing our lifestyle not just by getting rid of what we have, but really reducing what we buy and bring into our life in the first place. She had an interesting way of wording things—we don’t get to own something, it’s not necessarily a privilege, it’s really more of a burden. She emphasizes that as soon as we buy something, it’s now up to us to take care of it. It makes it a lot easier to second guess whether I actually should buy something.

She made me realize my biggest problem, the one I truly needed to tackle, was my intake of things. I just shop way too much for things I don’t really need and/or only bring me fleeting happiness. This led me into some further research and discovering a blog by Cait Flanders (http://caitflanders.com), in which, among other things, she details a shopping ban she enacted for herself in order to get out of debt and start living a better life. This really motivated me, and though I’m not quite brave enough to do a year, as of today I’m starting a Summer Shopping Ban. As of today, no more purchasing things I don’t need, which includes more clothes, home décor, take-out, candy and super unhealthy snacks. Like Cait, I’m allowing myself to buy replacements for things that break or run out, as long as I actually need the item and I get rid of the old one.

To someone who loves shopping as much as I do, this shouldn’t sound fun. But I’m actually really excited to start. I just remember how much happier as I was as a kid, in my little closet nook, with only a few things to keep me company. My goal is to eventually save enough money to make my dream of buying a little fixer upper in the middle of nowhere (instead of continuing to rent an apartment in a big city) a reality. Then I hope to start a whole new kind of adventure.