This Year

When I arrived in England three years ago, I did so with very few possessions. Clothes, mostly, and my lap top. I lived simply...I hardly bought anything because every thing was so expensive and the things I did buy were out of necessity: shampoo, soap, food, etc.

I didn't buy clothes. I didn't buy home decor. I didn't buy expensive phones....

I lived on only what I needed. I hadn't really realized that until just the past few weeks. Some of the stuff I boxed and stored away before I went to England are still boxed and stored away. I went without those things for so long that I forgot I had them.

Anyway, I want to get back to that. Been home almost three years and oh, how it's easy to get back to the excessive and the luxurious. So, I've been going through my stuff, slowly, bit by bit, and getting rid of what I don't need; what I haven't used in ages, what I haven't worn or read...Even my apartment is too much. It's too big. Neither I nor my roommates really use the living room. We keep to our rooms. We never use the powder room. We don't even have a kitchen table -- that's how little time we spend in the kitchen. We cook and eat at the bar.

I want to go back to the days where I lived on only what I needed. Heck, I lived for almost two months in various hostels around Europe with ONLY what I could carry on my back: two, maybe three, pairs of pants, a pair of shoes, five or six shirts, toiletries and the unmentionables. Didn't even have a lap top with me a lot of the time -- internet cafes are a beautiful thing.

Good crap. I lived in hostels and carried what I needed on my back. Everything I have now seems so excessive.

One thing has stuck, though: after having spent so may nights in hostels, sharing rooms with a dozen (or more) stranger, with the snoring, and the loud talking, and people waking up at 3 am to catch a flight, or people coming in at 3 am from a night now -- when traveling now, I could care less where I stay. I went on a business trip back in September and stayed in some apparently shady hotels. I didn't care or notice because as long as it had a bed and running water, I was good. My boss apologized to me for the poor hotels, but good grief, I didn't even notice. A hotel room to myself with a queen size bed and cable? That's like staying at the Ritz.

And so, this year: live on less -- back to the basics -- only the essentials. Be free again; don't have to be living in Europe to do that. Stop worrying so much. It'll all come out in the wash. Trust and faith and do.

Snowdonia National Park, Northern Wales, February 2009