Minimalism

Minimalism

It ain’t what it’s cracked up to be.

I thought there was something so romantic about the idea of selling it all.  So we did.  We sold our car.  We sold our house.  We sold the furniture in our house.  

We packed up the few sentimental remaining items: the Christmas ornaments, the photo albums, the memory boxes and put them in the smallest storage room Metro Self Storage had to offer.  

The idea was experiences were more important than things.  The philosophy was we didn’t want a lifetime of objects weighing us down.  The thinking was stuff was just stuff.

So we moved to Japan and at first we felt free.  Weightless as we left cabinets empty, walls bare and rooms feeling very tidy as they were clutter free.  Minimalism is a trend for a reason, right?  We were so self-realized and sophisticated.

Then the years passed…

And we found ourselves in a city that can also feel quite minimal.  So simple, so functional, so efficient.  So to come home to a house that felt similar made it feel less like a safe haven and more like an extension of the outside world.  All of a sudden, I was craving more boldness.  More personality.  A home that is bright like US.

Many expats live in apartments that look like they could leave at a moments notice without an ounce of trouble.  The kind of apartments where the space could be theirs or could be their friends, as it is completely impersonal and totally interchangeable.  We say no to pets.  We say no to plants.

So many of us know our lives here are temporary, so we live as such.  And of the many things I have learned on this journey, I have learned living in a space that feels temporary creates a feeling that your life is temporary - when we know damn well it is not.  

This is not a paused moment in time.  Our moments abroad are just as real, if not more real, than any moments before and any moments to come.  They are rich and robust and bursting with beauty.  And our spaces should reflect that too.

If I had to do it all over again, I would have brought the Christmas ornaments, the photo albums and the memory boxes with us.  If I had to do it all over again, I would have hung up art on Day 1 not caring about the holes they told me not to put in the walls, cause for heaven’s sake when you live in a small apartment with two young boys, you’re not getting back your security deposit anyways.  If I had to do it all over again, I would frame more pictures of our family, bought more memory triggering objects on our travels and said yes to that cozy chair for our bedroom.

Cause things are not always clutter.  Things can make a house a home.  YOUR home.  Your space to be truly, unapologetically, totally YOU.