I’ve been on a binge lately. Not the fun kind where you wake up in jail or forget where you left your car last night or realize you’re on a first name basis with every bartender in town. No, I find myself in the throes of another kind of binge. I’ve been purging my life of so many things. Let’s call it the “great cleanse of fall 2021” – and it feels darn good. People, papers, things, habits, negative feelings… if I don’t need it, it’s out of here. And I’m realizing just how little I actually need. (Side note in case you didn’t know, poca is Spanish for little… so no, the title isn’t a nod to the little town in West Virginia.)

This all started earlier this year, or maybe before that truthfully. I’d been thinking about the clutter in my life and how it seemed to weigh me down both figuratively and literally. That was all I did though, I just thought about it. I didn’t do anything about it. I just thought and thought and got overwhelmed by it and let it lie. Little by little, I started realizing some things. I realized how much I hated cleaning the same useless things around my house over and over again. I realized how my health was not improving. I realized how I felt tired and heavy and sluggish. I realized how little I actually used some of my belongings. I realized how many articles of clothing I had that never saw light of the world outside of the drawer. I realized how I tend to carry feelings and worries and doubts and let them drag me down most of the time, or at least how I allowed them to impede any possible progress I might make. I realized that my physical weight had crept up to the point that I was ACTUALLY carrying more weight and it was slowing me down and systematically ruining my health. I’d like to say I had an “enough is enough” moment, but it wasn’t quite like that. It’s been more of a slow progression toward changing some things up that began with one moment.

I was at the doctor for a checkup. I knew my weight had been escalating and I knew it was going to be a topic of discussion. My doctor, who isn’t one to beat around the bush, said to me almost immediately, “So why is your weight going up?” A little stunned by her directness, I said, “Well, I guess I’ve been eating too much.” I felt like saying, you’re the doctor – you tell me. I knew why though, and I knew it was all my fault. I had been indulging. The funny thing about that is that we indulge thinking we’re treating ourselves. We live in a world where we’re encouraged to ‘treat yoself’ constantly. The fact is that we use that as an excuse sometimes to harm ourselves without judgement. I can only speak for myself, but I know I was eating and drinking what I wanted, when I wanted, consequences be damned. I was treating myself and I was allowed to do that. Of course I am. But of course, there are consequences. I mean, how much of a treat is it really when you feel like garbage afterward? It wasn’t so much that I’d realized that I couldn’t do that to myself any more… I had known that. It was that I had come to accept it. So the first change came in the form of my diet and what I was feeding myself regularly. It’s still early in that game, but I’m feeling better and I’ve lost some weight and I realize now that it’s a good trade-off. The first thing I gave up was a few pounds and the idea that constantly eating things that hurt me is a treat.

Next came the purging of the condo. One Sunday I all of a sudden had the urge to just get rid of clutter. I started in the kitchen and went room by room, filling boxes and bags. Let me preface this by saying I live in a two-bedroom, 1000-1100 square feet condo. There isn’t a ton of room for keeping things to begin with. I just felt like I had things that I wasn’t using that I didn’t need to hold on to. I am not nor have I ever been a hoarder. I am more likely to throw something out or give it away than to keep it for no reason. But we all accumulate things over time. I had held on to some things from my past life that I no longer needed. My life has changed so much over the past five years. I had a lot to let go of, and little by little I’ve been doing that. By the end of that day, I had a trunk full of items to drop off at Goodwill and two bags for the dumpster. I still feel like there’s more that can go.

Third, I’ve begun to let go of decor and furniture that I’ve gotten tired of or do not use. First to go, some decor around my living room. I realized I hated having to clean and dust it and that was all I really ever did with/to it, so it’s gone. Following that line of thinking, my sights turned to furniture. My dining table had become a catch-all for all sorts of things. It held miscellaneous papers that I carried in for different reasons and never filed away, it held a laptop and was a part time desk, it held keys and sunglasses. What it never held were plates and dishes or meals. I don’t live with a family any more. I don’t have dinner parties or parties of any kind any more. I don’t make huge meals for holidays any longer. The bottom line, that table was a dust catcher and a thing-holder now. I decided to let it go. The table was sold and picked up, the dining room is empty, and an elliptical machine that I won in a drawing is going in. I’m already thinking about what furniture will go next.

Of course the obvious clean-out is the closet. I’ve done that. Over and over again, I do that. The people at thredUP know me by my first name as I constantly have a kit enroute to them. I’m at this place in life where I want to look nice, but I also want to be comfortable. That immediately negates a lot of items in my closet. So I clean out, sift through, and then I sit down and be honest and do it again with a more brutal eye. I’m slowly getting down to just the things I actually wear seasonally and I don’t even remember all the things I’ve sent away any more.

I’ve gotten rid of a lot of stuff. We all hang on to stuff. We think we may need stuff later on down the road, and some things are useful to keep around. A lot of things aren’t though. What I’m finding is that the more I relieve myself of, the lighter I feel. Trinkets, clothes, furniture, pounds, it’s all the same. It all holds us down and adds additional weight and responsibility and work. I read some place that if we looked at purchases as hours worked instead of how many dollars they cost, we might see their value differently. How many hours of your life is that purchase really worth? How many hours off your life is that junk food really worth? It seems we spend our lives trying to attain things. I’m guilty. Maybe that’s partially from growing up with little and wanting more. What I’m trying to sort out now though, is which things are worth keeping. Which things are useful to me? Which things really bring me joy? (Shout out to Marie Kondo) Some of the things I own do make me happy. Mostly though, it isn’t the things at all is it? THAT’s what I need to remember.