New Thoughts On Living With Enough

After a few years of living a minimalist (or semi-minimalist lifestyle), I have some new thoughts on living with enough.

I started my journey into simple living and minimalism at the end of 2016 and put all of my research into action the spring of 2017. At the time I was living in an old factory apartment in Manchester Connecticut and working a corporate job for a retirement financial company near Hartford. I had worked so hard to “make it,” but I was feeling anything but. My husband, then boyfriend at the time, was working the night shift as I worked the day shift. Long hours with an unforgiving work pace and an office bully left me exhausted, stressed, and feeling burnt out. On top of it all, I didn’t have time for growing my photography business. Matthew and I didn’t have time together. Although for the first time ever I wasn’t struggling to pay rent and the bills for our little lifestyle, I didn’t have any time to enjoy my new freedom. After the bullying at work became unbearable, I knew I had to make some changes if I wanted to feel healthy again and to live the life I wanted to live.

So after months of planning with my husband we both made big changes. We wanted to be healthier and happier and we felt that simplifying our loves was one good way to do it. We both moved to a new much smaller studio loft apartment in a smaller town (downsizing from our two floor, two bedroom, two bathroom apartment), changed jobs (Matthew switched to a day shift engineering job and I changed to a simpler secretary job with more limited hours so I could pursue my photography business), and we changed our mindsets. You can read about my intention to live with enough at this link. Essentially, I tried to become a minimalist in the structured sense of the word; smaller home, less stuff (we donated at least 30% of our stuff in the move), and more time for people and activities that we love.

For the first year it worked out really well for us. But truthfully, living in a small space can be very challenging and it makes Matthew feel claustrophobic. Even the smallest messes look big in our small space, and even though we downsized our stuff, there isn’t enough space for the things we have. Where I originally thought that maybe we just had too much stuff, we simply did not have space for the necessities in our kitchen and bathroom. And with just one closet for everything we really didn’t have any space to organize. I also learned that I’m not a great minimalist; I’m more of a simple living and semi-minimalist. By that I mean I love books. Most minimalists would donate all of their books and switch to digital kindle reads, but I’m a book girl. And our book collection displayed behind our sofa in the living room (because we don’t have any other space to put them) brings me joy. I’m better at donating the books I’ll never read again or have no intention of ever reading, but I’m also still buying and keeping books these days. I don’t think that will ever change about me. A big shelf of books brings me comfort and beauty to my home.

Minimizing our kitchen, gadgets, electronics, and other stuff came easy to me. Other than the books, the only tough part for me is clothing. Again, this is why I’m a semi-minimalist instead of an actual minimalist. While I dig a seasonal capsule wardrobe, I like being able to switch up my look based on where I go, the weather, and what I’ll be doing. In New England, you have to have a full wardrobe for all kinds of weather from below zero to one hundred degrees Fahrenheit. Perhaps it is because I am a photographer and an artist, but I just love exploring my personal style. The clothes I love to wear aren’t necessarily appropriate to wear at a law office where I work so I have work clothes and weekend clothes. I donated so many clothes during our move, but I’ve also purchased some high quality and timeless key pieces that I’ll probably be keeping forever or close to it.

Then 2018 hit us. Equally the happiest year of my life and the most difficult year of my life. Pros: we got married, went on an amazing honeymoon, and my blog started to take off. Cons: One side of my family completely fell apart after a few years in turmoil and I was thrown in the middle. Suddenly I was put in the role as the scapegoat for all family problems. I started developing depression and anxiety. By 2019 I was pushed over the edge. It took me a very long time until I figured out what was actually happening to me mentally. That the way I was feeling was the result of emotional abuse, manipulation, and gaslighting. It was subtly, but powerful. I hadn’t realized just how much I had been groomed to believe that everything was my fault. During that time I wasn’t just depressed, anxious, and feeling like I was constantly walking on egg shells, I was also exhausted and stressed. I dealt with those feelings by trying harder to “get better” and feeling worse when I failed. I found myself shopping a little extra to make myself feel better. Of course, it didn’t work. The true work I needed to do was on my elf esteem. I was also so exhausted that I couldn’t keep up with the housework and maintaining the decluttering that I worked so hard on in 2017.  The apartment became a cluttered mess. By the end of 2019 I was making steps to heal myself and now in 2020 I am on the up and up. Our apartment will get there too.

Life is certainly getting better, but as I look around, I can’t help but notice how far I strayed from our original goal. In large part, it was because I put on some really strict expectations on myself. Minimalist expectations that went against my own comfort and happiness. I have discovered that I need to loosen up a little bit. As I’ve said, I’ve learned that I am not a perfect minimalist, nor will I ever want to be. It simply isn’t me and it doesn’t bring me joy, however simple living is something I do love and value.

2020 is going to be a lighter year. I’m feeling much happier and more like myself again. I feel healthy again. Slowly but surely, I’m getting my energy and my life back. But I also know that I’m never going to be a minimalist again. It’s just not us. Tiny spaces with empty walls and spartan closets? Not for us. I still want to live small. Simple living is still in our cards and I am not going to ever turn into a big shopper. But I have learned that it is ok to want things, within reason. That simple living is about living with enough, not depriving yourself of comforts and joy. We signed on for another year in our tiny apartment, but once the year is up and Matthew gets closer to graduating, we’re upgrading to a slightly larger space (maybe even a small house!) for that we can finally have room for all of our necessities and space for living. Our apartment is so small now that no one ever wants to visit or stay over, that we cannot entertain our large family and many friends, and we cannot do the hobbies we love to do inside. It will be nice to have a home office so that we can both have a space to work and our books will finally have a real home instead of being stashed on bookcases behind our living room sofa. We would love to have just enough room so that everything can have its own place. I’m already dreaming of a yard.

We’re not going into the opposite direction from where we started, but we are staying true to ourselves. Minimalism definitely is not for Matthew at all and perfect minimalism is not for me. It was something we had to learn for ourselves. We will be taking many of the values with us moving forward though; that time is our best commodity, that experiences are far more important than things, gratitude for the things we already have, that time spend with loved ones is a bigger priority than working, and that life is too short to waste it working to collect more stuff.  I’m good with living with enough. For some that may not appear minimalist at all, but we have found that living with our own intention and our own depiction of enough is just enough for us.