Concerning Stuff

There's so much of it!

If you decide to embark on a nomadic life, it's entirely possible that part of that decision will be giving up your permanent home, in whatever form that home takes. Unless, of course, you're wealthy enough that you can afford to keep a house empty for however many years you are going to be on the road. If that's you, this post may not mean much to you beyond a curiosity at what could have been.

However, if you are planning on following the path I took then you will need to get rid of your stuff, be it some of your stuff or all of your stuff. As I mentioned in my very first post, my house sitting lesson number one was ‘you have no idea how much stuff you own’. We humans love our stuff. Look around you right now. Your stuff is everywhere, right? All you have is stuff. On your bookshelves, on your desk, in boxes in your attic, on the table next to your bed, in the kitchen cupboards, shoved behind the couch, rotting in the back yard. Stuff.

As Tyler Durden (Fight Club, 1999) once said, “the things you own end up owning you.” He’s not wrong. That makes it hard to get rid of your stuff. But it is not impossible. With a little willpower, a little tech knowledge, and the time to use both, you’ll be surprised how little you need and how much you can carry with you in a different format.

So here are a few helpful tips to make that ‘conscious uncoupling’ from your stuff a little easier. I said a little.

Books and Movies.
When I decided to give up my apartment, back in 2014, and house sit full-time I had an enviable collection of DVDs and Blu-rays. As an autistic movie fanatic, they were among the hardest things to part with (my movie collection was often the only aspect of my life that was organized). The solution I embraced was to simply collect digital versions of all my favorite movies. Often Blu-ray editions come with a digital version attached, so you may already have a few. For those that don’t there is software that will digitize your movies for you. You’ll just need a Blu-ray or DVD reader for the computer. Of course, things have moved on since then and now there are streaming services that will allow you to access your favorite movies wherever, provided you can afford to keep them all active.

The same goes for books. These days most books are available in a digital format. Yes, I know there is nothing like the feel of an actual book in your hands. I practically grew up in a library, my dad had so many books. But if you are truly committed to life on the road and don't want to drag a mobile library behind you, then you really need to just be Kindle.

Paperwork and Photographs
Gradually, paperwork is becoming a thing of the past as online documentation becomes more than norm. I mean, it only took about 20 years for bureaucratic establishments to catch up, but we’re getting there. However, if you’re of a certain age then there will always be things that only exist on paper. Time for the scanner. If it exists on paper it can be digitized. It's time consuming, and boring as hell, but when you're done you will have a lifetime's worth of paperwork and photographs in digital format. They will take up as much room as a memory card.
I spent weeks digitizing all my old photographs, a solitary globule of spit drooling from the corner of my zoned-out mouth, but it was worth it.

Clothes
Be honest, how many clothes do you really need? Chances are, if you are embarking on a nomadic life, then you work remotely. You don't need to go to the office everyday so do you really need that suit or equivalent presentable wear? Try to narrow down your wardrobe to a few pairs of shoes, around two weeks’ worth of underwear and enough shirts, t-shirts, pants, skirts, dresses, or whatever you wear to see you through a week or two. I do my laundry once a week and can stretch out my underwear (not literally, except if I put on weight) for longer.

Sentimental Items
There will always be things that you simply don't want to give up, but would be impractical to take on the road with you. If this is the case, then packing up however many boxes of stuffed toys, trinkets, yearbooks, diaries, or whatever else would be a irreplaceable and finding somewhere to store them is the only viable option. If you have a family member willing to add a few boxes of stuff to their attic space or garage, this is ideal. The alternative is to put your things into a storage unit through one of the many storage companies available.

This option is less than ideal, I should warn you, because in my experience these companies are shysters who will arbitrarily raise their rates without due notice, safe in the knowledge that few people will fight back or move their stuff when they're on the other side of the planet. And I won't even mention the mice. Or the flooding. You get the picture.

And at this point I will once again thank my brother, whose attic contains a small suitcase of dumbass treasures, tawdry memorabilia and objet d’art that this wide-eyed and untested nomad left there over ten years ago (and hasn't looked at since). He's a good egg, my brother. And this really highlights how little you need the stuff that you think you need. But if you have to release it in stages and increments, that’s fine.

So, brave soul, if you are considering stepping out into the nomadic unknown and are struggling with the heavy burden of releasing your stuff into the wild, leave me a comment or a message and I will respond with some words of comfort (well, sort of). Perhaps I'll start a support group for people who miss their stuff. I can call it Stuff Off. Or something.

As my wife and I look ahead this year and plan more journeys, this time without our trusty Bessie (the car), we will need to downsize our stuff even more. So I'll be the first one needing that support group. It’s still hard to get rid of stuff, even now. So I will return again to the words of Tyler Durden, “It's only after you lose everything that you're free to do anything.”

He’s not wrong.

---