Minimalistic aspirations!

I have shifted homes more than a dozen times during my very long tenure on planet Earth. Of course I have no recollection of my earlier lives or my existence on other planets. Anyway half of the shifting I did before I got married and the other half continues to this day.

When I was a child and we moved. There were no ‘Movers n Packers’ so my father and I packed up each of our possessions (My mother stuck to her personal belongings and kitchen, and my sister was somehow not there when we were moving!). The possessions I recall, included the tube lights and bulbs, air conditioners and air coolers, books and magazines, showpieces and photographs, in short everything. I was in charge of the packing of small things (Not Furniture) and it was my responsibility to see that each packed item (we used old newspapers, towels and dresses and saris to be thrown) was carefully fitted into the wooden crates lined with hay and straw. It would be inspected by Dad and then nailed shut.

My mother was a hoarder. She loved buying stuff that were new in the market and then used maybe once and stored (Ovens, juicers, grills, barbecues, biryani makers, rice cookers, induction heaters et al) during each of these shifting there was the eternal arguments of what should be kept and what should be thrown. Every time my mother agreed that somethings needed to be left out but when we unpacked in the new place they would all be there!

When I started my adult life I did the other half of my moving. We did have packers by then so neither I nor the rest of my family needed to pack anything but we did need to sort things out. I too, like my mother, am a hoarder but not exactly like her. I began by hoarding used gift-wrapping papers (sometimes I did use them), I also kept shoe boxes (to store some unwanted things u know!), then there were magazines, letters, visiting cards (of plumbers and electricians!) and before the arrival of the cell phone I hoarded telephone books with their numerous cuts and numbers! Pens which did not work, pencils which were blunt, paints which were almost dry and I am sure you can add a lot of things that you do and I might respond with “I did that too”.

But this was the time when I did weed out my wardrobe. I did this so that I could, without guilt, refurbish it in the new place. This did not include the heavy saris which were my wedding trousseau, they were well packed (having never been opened after they came from dry cleaning after they were worn once!) so it was not a great deal of trouble. I of course used my judgement to weed out the kid’s wardrobe. I failed in this aspect of my ‘lord n master’ wardrobe as he had his own ideas about what should be thrown off!

When we last shifted to the current abode, I had been ruthless in throwing away clothes, papers, books, utensils and even things like ribbons and artificial jewellery. At first settling down in the new house was heavenly. Every storage space was meticulously planned out and only things that had any usefulness in them were kept and I even made a kind of excel sheet to catalogue my belongings (though it tapered off after sometime!)

Then one by one the crisis happened. We needed old towels for random cleaning and so were the requirements of old bedsheets. The tool box filled with feviquick had been unfortunately thrown off. Those extra wood planks had been inadvertently left behind! Those mismatched tea cups had been thrown off (so useful when you have the whole house filled with painters and electricians and plumbers needing cups of tea at regular intervals!). The old paint brushes though too hard to paint were great for cleaning the sliding window channels. The list is endless….

So started my various Amazon deliveries to fill in the holes of unnecessary items. My ‘minimalistic’ ideas went out of the window.

Now after four years I have come a full circle and every other day is filled with “to keep or not to” as I wade into cupboard after cupboard listing, cutting, throwing and rehashing stereotypes.

I look longingly at new dinner sets, cooking sets, furniture, curtains and thingamabobs, for I cannot buy a new one if I have four sets languishing for use in the unlabelled cupboards.

Now I need to get away from the house into someplace there is nothing to buy, every once in a while. Do you think this malady is curable after all it is a genetic disability and it is NOT MY FAULT!