It’s Just Stuff

There’s something very satisfying about purging stuff. For some reason, Elliott and I tend to get very ambitious about clearing out the clutter in our lives on Labor Day weekend and this year is no different.

For about ten years, between graduating high school and starting law school, I moved at least annually. Each time I challenged myself to widdle down the excess material things I’d collected and purge anything that would not be missed. Having always admired the simplistic life of buddhist monks, I found it satisfying to know that I could fit all of my belongings into a Honda Accord and move on a whim. For a year or two, I had fantasies of purging nearly everything and living out of my tent in New Mexico. Instead I moved into an apartment in NYC that probably had less square footage than my tent.

But in the summer of 2005, purging took on a whole new meaning. I had just graduated from Tulane Law School and Elliott and I were making plans for our next move from New Orleans to Louisville, where his family lives. I took a weekend trip up to New York for a family party, while Elliott stayed home to finish up some work. Ten hours after I arrived in New York, Hurricane Katrina took aim at New Orleans and started gaining speed. Three days later, Elliott was residing in a hotel room with three days worth of clothes, a dog, a cat, our wedding album and our insurance papers. A month later, we returned to our New Orleans apartment for the first and last time following the storm. We piled all of our belongings onto the curb and returned to our temporary residence at my in-laws’ house nearly empty-handed. It was the ultimate purge.

Yes, it was sad to leave those things behind, many of which were wedding gifts and other reminders of our first couple years of marriage, but as we started our 12 hour drive back to Kentucky, we just kept saying, “it’s just stuff.” And, really, how could we say anything else while surrounded by a city that had been decimated by Mother Nature and families that were ravaged by death and separation. We had each other and we had what I now consider the most precious personal belonging – our photos. By the time we reached Kentucky, we felt downright giddy about our new-found liberation from material things and our great fortune for having survived yet another disaster. (More on that later this week.)

So, I’ve actually been looking forward to this most recent purge for months now, making a mental list of things that I wanted to sell, donate or junk. While I hope we never have to purge on such a grand scale again. I find I am able to recapture that feeling of liberation and great fortune just a little bit each time we rid ourselves of our excess. And this year, when so many people are facing tough times — unemployment, foreclosure. massive consumer debt — it seems appropriate for those of us who are not collecting million dollar bonuses for having failed miserably at our jobs, to appreciate what we do not have and do not need. After all, it’s just stuff.

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