Electronic Music 411 - I hate moving. - moving, gear, girlfriend, embarrassment

07/01/06 + PYVND

I'll tell you my story. I had tons of records, cds, MAGAZINES, some books, some clothes and all kinds of little things I had held onto over the years. Not so much a packrat, but definitely not minimal. I would see people that just had a bed and XMradio and that was it and I had no idea how they could live that way although I admired it. I was always into Japanese lifestyle and minimal things like that. I didn't practice it but I was aware of it and admired it.

A few years ago I bought a one-bedroom condo and me and my girlfriend (now fiance) moved in together. She is an artist so she had paintings and lots of magazines and little bits and stuff. Her father is a total packrat. Her parents' house is filled with books and all kinds of stuff in the basement. It's mad. She is kind of compact though because she had to move a few times during college. Although she had kept a lot of stuff at her parents' that later came into our place.

So it was two people's stuff being moved into a one bedroom condo. It wasn't totally insane, but it was insane enough. A little more than a year ago I decided we had to start getting rid of things. It took a while to convince her but once she was convinced we began clearing. And man oh man did we ever. I recycle everything that can be recycled so we just had boxes and boxes of papers and magazines going down to recycling. Sold some stuff on ebay and also donated a lot of things to salvation army. I also bought cd cases for all our CDs and got rid of the jewelcases (kept the ones that came in special packaging). Got rid of old computers, old clothes, and made an effort to use things that could be used up before buying more. It became this different lifestyle and it continues and I am very happy with the change. It opens up your mind and it makes home a relaxing place to be.

Recently I have started helping my parents (who are pretty old) clean out their house. My dad is a packrat in a bad way, but my mom lives a spartan way. I have some of my stuff there still. So I've started going over there and getting rid of stuff. We also plan to sell some of the belongings of our parents that they don't need or use to partially finance our wedding. We asked them about it and they were like yeah ok come clear out, we don't need this stuff.

When I was younger and America seemed like an endless supply of stuff, I just bought whatever I wanted and had money for. Now that America is becoming a tighter place, and I think having had to bust my ass on a full-time job for several years, I am a lot more respectful about things like that. Also, when you have less stuff, you can get nicer things of the stuff you do have. I am buying a new 12 gallon fish tank for my gold fish though. And an Ion keyboard. Hahahahaha.