Shopping now kind of .... sucks

After a long day at work or at home, one of my joys and rewards to myself (for not strangling my child or my students) was going shopping.  Without a list or any particular need or reason why I am there, I just enjoy strolling up and down the aisles of handbags, shoes, jeans, tops, cookwear, blankets, and toys.  I stay there for hours. John knows that when I go shopping, not to worry, because I am safe and sound in the store.

After the major purge I went through this year, I still get the urge to shop.  I still indulge in the wandering and aimless strolling through the various departments.  I still really enjoy it because I am a visual person who gets stimulated by color and texture and designs on jackets and buckles and jewelry.  I get my fix looking at the stuff. I also get tempted to bring home lots of stuff....Hey, it's on "sale," right?  But before I get to the register, I remember that the items in my hands look eerily similar to the items I donated recently. Didn't I just donate something like this (fill in the blank) recently?

That's when I turn around and put the items back.  Don't get me wrong, I still want the stuff.  I still desire the new and bling-y thing I just found.   But the voice in my head reminds me that I don't need that new thing, and that I have just unburdened my home of some stuff that looks A LOT like the stuff I'm about  to buy. 

This has kind of, sort of taken that shopping-induced-temporary-high AWAY.  I find it ironic that letting go of a lot of my belongings would cause this other part of my behavior to change as well.  Reducing my stuff caused me to avoid buying MORE stuff.  What a strange consequence!  I would expect the opposite to happen.  I would expect to be tempted to buy more as a result of feeling deprived or sad to have given stuff away.  But I don't feel deprived or sad.  In fact, I feel light and free and cheerful when I see the space that opened up from removing items from our home. 

Now the biggest shopping season is here. I'm sure I will be tempted to buy a gift for me while shopping for friends and family.  But if this new phenomenon continues, and I may end up avoiding the department stores all together.  I hope my family will like the gift cards or cash they get instead.  We'll see.

Where's my wife?

"Mom, I have a wife now."

These are not words you expect to hear from your 7-year old son.  I was quiet.  Maybe I heard wrong.

"Mommmmm! I have a wife now."  I turned around to see what Lucas could possibly be talking about.  He acquired a wife on his favorite game: Minecraft.  This game is interesting because you get to use blocks (like Legos) to build a home, a city, and community, hunt for food, mine for coal, chop wood for building, craft an axe or sword for hunting... etc.  Lucas has been playing it for some time now, but this is a new development.

"I have a wife," he repeated to his Dad this time.  "Me too!"  was John's response.

"I will have a home set so me and my wife can have a home," Lucas exclaimed.  I thought: Ah, good! Making sure he provides a good home for her.  By the way, this is what she looks like.  Cute, right?

Then suddenly the game crashed.  I think what happened was the modification to the game that allowed him to have a wife caused the game to stop working.  Nevertheless, it crashed.

This happens to this game sometimes.  "I need another wife," Lucas said casually. 

John's attention was now on Lucas and the crashed game.  "What happened to your wife?" John asked, amused.

"I can't find her.  Where's my wife?"  Lucas re-started the game. 

"See what happens when you get a wife?"  John said to Lucas, making sure I could hear him loud and clear.  I could sense John smiling way over there across the  room.  "Very funny," I responded.

Divorce aftermath

I did another drop to Goodwill yesterday:  One large bag of clothes and a bag of shoes.  I had trouble letting the shoes go, though.  I took them out of their donation bag, tried them on, and thought about what outfits would go well with them.  "No," I told myself.  "You can let these go." I returned the shoes to the donation bag. Then I felt a shot of pain from my unsupported arches... there goes that insecurity again. My fear of letting go is still with me.  I was feeling so elevated and enlightened by my release of so much stuff.  But the shoes seems to be my trouble spot. 

What struck me the most from my purge of stuff was the unbelievable number of bags I have  ALREADY donated.  But still, I have a hard time fitting all my belongings into my closet.  How is that possible?  I haven't shopped since the summer... (for my new job).  John teases me when he sees my closet because I have all my shirts and pants lined up and stacked neatly.  But there isn't much room for extras.  In fact, when I pull out a shirt or a pair of sweatpants from the stack, I have to make sure the whole thing doesn't come down as well.  That's a sign that there is still too much in there.  

This process begins a conversation in my head. I ask myself questions like, "Why does it matter that I clear some of these clothes? " Or why spend all this time clearing out the old video cassette tapes?" We'll, I am staring to believe that the more things surround me, the more those things compete for my attention. One example is when I had three sets of dishes in my kitchen. Yes, I said three. There are four people in my family. Realistically we use four plates, four cups, and four sets of utensils. We are able to wash anything when we finish using it.  But before I donated my kitchen stuff, I had enough dishes and accessories to feed eighteen people. Maybe that was source of security for me..."hey, if eighteen people suddenly show up, I can feed all of them at the same time.  But you know what happened? My little family would just pull out dish after dish and cup after cup until the dishes piled so high that we could get anything under the faucet anymore. Maybe that is more of a statement about my family's habits in the kitchen rather than on minimalizing kitchen stuff. But it was amazing when after I cut down the dishes to a maximum of seven plates, five cups, and eight eating utensils, the dishes never, never piled up!  Now how did that happen?

"But what if I miss the item I just donated?" I have asked myself more than once. The amazing thing is... I haven't yet missed one single item I got rid of.  Not one. Even my wedding gown that I donated last month...I don't miss it.  Don't get me wrong, I loved it and I remember my Lola every time I think of it, but I do not wish I had the gown back. I didn't use it, I will never use it, and I didn't see it everyday.

I am happier with more space and less clutter taking up my attention.   Even though the stuff is nonliving and inanimate, it takes up precious space in my room, in my schedule (to move, organize, or clean), and in my mind.  Removing the item not needed frees up that physical space as well as the space in my head.  It's a feeling I am growing to enjoy. 

I have been doing some research online to see what strategies are out there for someone looking to minimalize.  Should I keep enough clothes for only one laundry load?  Should I keep the clothes to a maximum number of, say, 50 items?  There's a lot of advice out there.  And a lot of it is very good.

Tammy Stoebel wrote a few books on "going small" and her blog Rowdy Kittens is one that I frequent.  She and her husband now live in a tiny house in Northern California.

Another blog I just love is The Minimalists.  These two guys had six-figure incomes and nice "stuff" that you would think would make anyone content and happy.  But they found out that money and stuff is not enough. 

Divorce

My wardrobe is shrinking.  I have 2 more bags going to Goodwill.  I have been reading about people who started embracing minimalism after a death in the family or after a divorce.

I feel like I'm getting divorced...not from my marriage. From my excess stuff.  (John is a good guy!)

I am divorcing QVC (*gasp!) 

I am divorcing my purse collection.  Do you know that I use only 3 purses in my 25-plus purse collection?  Ask any woman.  I bet they also use about 10 percent of their purses.  The rest of my purses just stay in their closet.  I have the privilege of moving them around and admiring them when I have to make space for more stuff, but for the most part, they are not practical or they are too heavy or too small to hold school papers, etc. 

Those purses were like a security blanket for me.  I wanted to make sure that I had the right-sized-cute-purse for any occasion.  I only need 3 purses:  Small, medium and large.  So I got divorced from my purse collection.

I have already divorced my cable TV.  I still watch Netflix and Hulu, but not everyday.  If I'm lucky I will catch something on the weekends, but most likely I am knitting, reading, or keeping the Lucas entertained. 

I divorced my wedding gown.  Yes, my most prized possession I have been hanging on to for 22 years.  I had hoped to have a daughter to pass it down to.  Or I hoped a friend or loved one would use it.  Or better yet, a granddaughter.... then I stopped... Really?  I will wait until I have a granddaughter?  And so I opened the box that contained my gown, admired it one last time, took photos of the lace detail, and remembered my Lola Luz for all the beautiful handwork she did.  I don't need the gown to remember my Lola forever.  She is in my heart. 

I will be divorcing my shoe collection.  Did you know I had 3 shoes for water sports?  3.  I don't do water sports that much, but for some reason I felt the need for 3 shoes to fit that occassion.  Now I am not a fan of high heels so I don't have those types of shoes.  What I do have in dozens of ... get this... orthopedic shoes!  I had plantar fasciitis for two painful years and could not wear anything without a serious arch support.  I also had to ice, stretch, and tape up my feet daily.  I shopped and shopped for good arch-supportive shoes, maybe, in order to ward off any more bouts of plantar fasciitis.  I just bought a pair last week...didn't need it!

But really that was very odd behavior.  I could totally live with, say, 5 pairs of well-made, durable shoes that are appropriate for work, play, weekends.   That will be more difficult.  I have insecurities about having foot pain again.  It nearly put me out of work.  But a mountain of shoes will not save me.  Vigilance and awareness of my body will keep me from a relapse...not all those shoes.

This leads me to think that a lot of my stuff was for "just in case" and for security.  But it's silly to look to our stuff for security.  Isn't it?

I'm on a roll.  Goodwill: here I come!

Why Now?

Looking back to my previous post, I commented that I was sad about the Hi-8 video of Ian degrading.  Analog videos are known to degrade over time.  The video I was watching was about 19 years old.  Ian is now 22.  It needed to be preserved.  There are about 20 cassettes just like it that my father-in-law left us. 

You might ask, "Why are you just taking care of these old videos now, Karina?"

For the same reason I have neglected a lot of things in my life.  There's just too much on my I'll-get-to-that-later  list.  Here are a few more items on that list that I have yet to tackle.

• organize my recipes
• add some healthy, possibly meat-free recipes to my collection
• shred my taxes from 2001 and beyond (I think I only need the last 3 years, right?)
• photograph ALL Lucas' artwork from Kindergarten and First Grade
• go through my closet and organize (I believe this item NEVER leaves my list)
• re-pot the house plants whose roots are ready to explode out of their pots
• painting projects I bought paint for but never started
• de-clutter the various junk drawers in our home

You get the idea.  The 20 or so video cassettes are also part of the list, but I think John and I can convert the good ones and discard the empty or messed up ones within a few weeks.

This project did bring up a tense conversation between John and me. John was annoyed that I planned on paying Costco to convert all these videos into digital format.  He said he can do it himself except he needed to clear space in his hard drive (video requires a lot of Gigabytes) and he needed to clear the space on his desk for the two camcorders he needed to feed the video into his computer....He hasn't found the time to do any of this for the last 5 years.  I don't completely understand the process he described.  I do understand that if I pay Costco $17.99, they will convert 2 hours of video and put it into a DVD for me within 3 weeks. 

This conversation got John started on setting up his computer to do the conversion.  I did not MAKE him do this.  I did not ASK him to do this, but just like that "to do" list I have above, he may have also felt like these tapes had been neglected long enough.  John converted two Hi-8 cassettes into digital format that night.  We also ended up watching little 3-year old Ian open presents at Christmas. But really, that took all evening. My "to-do" list will grow before I can check video tapes off that list.  And here's the other thing, that to-do list involves things... things I haven't kept organized, things I haven't started, things I haven't worn or touched....

This bring to mind the stuff, the stuff, the stuff... that takes my time and energy when I'm not working, sleeping, eating, or taking care of whatever Lucas needs at the moment (Ian doesn't ask Mom for much these days).  I have been seriously considering a major overhaul of the stuff in this apartment. 

I would like to spend my time here on Earth in a better way (since I am over the hill... and heading down!) The more time I spend with my stuff.. and it's good stuff...  the more I think I don't want to spend another minute with extraenous stuff.  Why should part of my Sunday be all about shoving my purses into a cabinet? 

I think this topic deserves its own post.... to be continued.

(the above image is from Kristen Lamb's blog about "The Junk Drawer of Life")

Vintage Ian

I am watching a video of Ian (age 3) taken by my father-in-law, (Lolo) Rafael Sarmiento.  It's a Hi-8 video from 1993.  It is starting to show signs of degrading.  That makes me sad because I told myself to convert these cassette-type videos into digital format years ago.  Maybe I could have saved this video.

But there are a few minutes of it here and there that are ok.  There is one part that struck me.  Ian was playing with his Lolo's camera tripod.  He was trying to look through the arm that extends out from the tripod.  He was pretending it was a telescope!  I fast-forwarded to two minutes later, and you would think that this 3-year-old would have raced to another part of the house distracted by something and started another activity.  Ian was still in the same position investigating the tripod.  This time, he was trying the hinges of the tripod, moving it back and forth, twisting left and right, with such tremendous focus.  All the while his Lolo had the camera on him. 

More minutes into the video showed Ian in front of the Christmas Tree.  He was opening a Christmas present.  It took him 2 1/2 minutes to open the present.  He meticulously peeled the paper and tape off the box... not really trying to be careful of ripping it... but just studying each movement and layer very carefully.  When he got the box open, Ian slowly pulled  out a cookie jar shaped like Santa Claus.  Then Ian grabbed the  lid (Santa's head) and put it on his fist and walked around the house like that.

If you gave Ian a shrink-wrapped item, he would sit down and try to find the seam so that he could begin to open it.  If his chubby little fingers didn't work, then he would use his teeth. If he finally surrendered and needed your help, he would watch you intensely to see how you opened the package.  He was always determined.

That focus and curiosity is what helped Ian succeed at school.  You can tell by the hours of video his Lolo took of him that Ian got that from the Sarmiento side. 

Stag Silence... months later

The habit of waking up on a leisurely Saturday morning and turning the TV on to anything that is on is not that easy to break.  I found myself one morning (a month after turning off cable TV) staring into the dark screen of the TV with a yearning for something that no TV could give me.  Was it companionship?  Was it a yearning for conversation or a need for meditation? Whatever it was I needed, it could not be satisfied with the TV.  As I mentioned in an older post, my family still watches TV from time to time, but because we have no cable anymore, we need to know what we want to watch on Hulu or Netflix before we turn the TV on.  It's a new and refreshing experience... to think about what you want before turning on the TV.

As I stared at the dark screen of the TV that morning, I knew I did not want to turn it on.  I needed something else.  This is what we did instead....



Going on 6 months of no cable, I haven't regretted the decision.  I think John misses "The Mentalist" and "Weeds", but he seems to find his shows eventually online or on the network's website.  We have been fine without cable.  Even Lucas watches less TV.  If he does watch, he chooses a show like his favorite "Johnny Test" and plays it over and over again.  But what 7-year-old doesn't do that?