Over the past several years I have been drifting – slowly at first but much more rapidly now – towards minimalism. Based on my family history, this is unusual. As a general rule, both sides of my family have collected and held onto large numbers of things.

Of itself, collections and keepsakes can be quite innocuous. The line between a well0curated collection and a horde of junk often appears blurry to the collector which potentially leads to hoarding. My great aunt crossed that line helped by an unhealthy sense of paranoia. She so feared identity theft that she held onto every item that held her name – from magazines to empty prescription bottles. At some point she moved out of her rent-controlled apartment and into the family home with her brother. She continued paying rent on the apartment though, unable or unwilling to part with anything. That job fell instead to my grandpa, mother and aunt.

These experiences led to a shared aversion for my mom and me. Neither of us wanted to leave such an onerous task to anyone who might come behind us. Periodically, usually on a day off, both of us go through the house filling large garbage bags with things to donate. Each time I continued to be surprised with how many bags I filled.

Each time I fought my own hoarding tendencies. My number one strength is context. According to gallup, creator of strengthsfinder, a person whose strength is context “look[s] back because that’s where the answers lie. You look back because that’s where the answers lie. You look back to understand the present.” (source) For me, this meant that I held on to everything that might possibly hold a memory in the event that some day I might look back on or use again. This made it difficult to get rid of things. Each time we packed up donations, I forced myself to take a second look at those maybes.

For example, I once held onto every piece of college writing or assessment that I received back with a grade. I also still had many of the rough drafts for those papers. While I no longer have any of them, I did not get rid of them all at once. The first time I went through the stack(s) I recycled all of my notes. Yes, I had saved my notes. The second time I recycled all papers except for any essays or term papers. The third time, just this last summer – nine years after I graduated from college – I recycled the remainder after first photographing the pages, a suitable compromise for my need for context.

This process began to accelarte a year and a half ago when I first discovered Frugalwoods and the previously unknown to me world of personal finance/minimalism/frugality blogs. Many different things started to come together for me. Unbeknownst to me, God started using what I was learning through these blogs and other events in my life to help me begin the process towards learning what truly made me happy.

This brings me to the inspiration for this post. As seems to be a tradition, the second week of January brought snow and unexpected time off. One of the things I crossed off my imaginary list of things to get to was finally watching The Minimalists documentary. I had originally planned to write a review and commentary of sorts but this entry has taken a different turn so I will save those observations for another post.

I came away from watching that documentary with a renewed desire to pare down my belongings, to figure out what truly matters. I spent several hours on January 10th combing through my belongings and asking myself the following questions. Does this bring me joy? Why do I have this? What purpose does this serve? Do I need this?

THe first thing I got rid of was the mason jar three-quarters full of the extra crossstitch thread that I clip off when I finish a thread. I can’t tell you why I first started “collecting” these bits of thread. It just started happening and kept happening. While watching the documentary that jar kept coming to my mind. I couldn’t think of a good reason for having it so it was the first thing to go.

By the time I finished I had filled a large black garbage bag of items to donate and another with recycling.

That does not include anything I threw straight into the trashcan.

After I returned from dropping off the donation and the recycling, I returned home and looked at my room. It still looked like I have too much stuff. Who knows, maybe in six months or a year I will fill up another garbage bag of items to donate.

One thing I know for sure though, that bag will not contain items purchased between now and then. I want to become more intentional in every part of my life including my possessions. Every item needs a purpose. If it has none, I don’t need it. Life is a lot better lived unencumbered with things.