The biggest impact on my relationship with material items happened when I lost two-thirds of what I owned. Before that moment, I had already been striving to live a more minimalist life. In the beginning of that same year, I transitioned from a full-time fashion job to becoming a freelance designer. At the time, I had been living in a two bedroom Brooklyn apartment by myself for six years. I worried that with the ebb-and-flow income of a freelancer, I might struggle to consistently make rent. I lived in a railroad apartment, so even though it was a 2-bedroom, it was not suited for having a roommate. After looking around in my neighborhood and seeing how high the prices had risen, I decided it wasn’t worth living 45 minutes outside the city at that price, and I moved to Manhattan.
I signed a lease on the Lower East Side with 3 roommates. My tiny room in the basement was only big enough to fit a full size bed wall-to-wall and a desk in the back, with no room to walk. Anything that didn’t fit into my room had to go in the adjacent storage closet/crawl space. I was determined to make it work so that I could be in the city (and walking distance to my new freelance gig), so I had to make some tough decisions about what belongings to let go. I gave away my entire VHS collection--minus 3 that I thought could probably never be found again-- because it took up a lot of shelf space. I was holding onto a lot of nostalgic items from my past that I wasn’t actually using: a Sony Walkman, a Sony Discman, all of my previous cell phones, and all the laptops I had ever owned (even though they were broken). I took photographs of everything to document them, and then I said my good-byes. I got rid of my bed and bought a really nice futon, so that I could fold it up and actually walk through my tiny room when I wasn’t sleeping. I built a closet rack on my new wall, and used floor-to-ceiling shelves to vertically store my books, shoes, and folded clothes. I was proud of myself for editing down to the smallest amount of belongings I had owned since college.
The largest downsizing I experienced, however, was an involuntary one.
In the months before it happened, there was a theme of loss happening in my life. I lost a dear friend to suicide. Then, about a month later, Hurricane Sandy struck New York, and the destruction was worse than the news outlets had anticipated. I was riding out the storm at my friend Kat’s apartment when the power cut out on us. Before I turned off my phone to conserve battery life, I read reports that the street was flooded by my apartment. I feared the worst. When the storm had fully passed, I asked Kat to make the trek on foot with me to investigate-- about 20 blocks down to the Lower East Side. On the way there, we passed total chaos: half the city was without power, and cars were crashing into each other at all the intersections. I distinctly remember taking a deep breath and telling her, “I’ve accepted that all of my stuff might be gone. Even if I have lost everything else, the one thing I want to recover is my laptop.” I didn’t want my laptop because of the item itself. A laptop can be replaced just like everything else. My computer had pictures and files from my life from the past decade or more. I also saw it as a way to be able to do freelance work and make money no matter where I ended up. It was a way to start over from almost nothing; a way to rebuild. When we got to my apartment, we discovered that the flooding ended about 3 blocks from where I lived, so I quickly grabbed my laptop and some clean underwear, and we left.
I was out of town when the fire occurred. I was actually in Providence, Rhode Island waiting to catch a bus back to the city. I got a phone call from my roommate, Mark, who told me that the apartment was on fire. His room was on the floor that had the least amount of damage, so the firefighters were letting him back in for a second to grab anything he needed before they taped off our apartment. He asked me if I needed him to check for anything valuable when they let him back inside. I said, “If my laptop is still there, that’s all I need.” He found the laptop and called me to tell me that it was safe with him at a friend’s house. When I got back to town, I stopped by the house where Mark was staying and retrieved the laptop. It was dented from pieces of drywall that had fallen on it, but it still worked. The building management prevented us from re-entering the apartment again for a month and a half for insurance reasons. I slept on my friend Steph’s sofa, continuing to go to work as normal, and living out of a small duffel bag of clothing I had with me from my Providence visit before the fire.
The fire happened the week before Christmas, and at the end of January, we were allowed back into the apartment again. I had to dig through the rubble and search for anything salvageable, which I could not have emotionally handled without the help of my friend Kat. Anything that could be saved was boxed up, and more friends showed up to help me get it moved to a storage unit. I flew down to Florida to freelance for 6 months, and while there, I purchased only enough clothing to make myself presentable at the office.
What I learned from losing my stuff is something people often discover (albeit more deliberately) when they drastically downsize their home or purge a lot of belongings. I discovered that I never actually needed all the things I owned before. I lived for a while with only a small duffel of clothing and a laptop, and I was not lacking. I still had a job the whole time. I had an amazing support group of friends and family who rallied around me and ensured that I had a place to sleep, plenty of food, and clean clothes.
We surround ourselves with material items in an attempt to express ourselves, to show status, to attempt to bring joy or fill an empty part of ourselves, and to cling to a memory we have attached to an item. Here’s the thing. You can surround yourself with “retail therapy” and never find the joy you’re seeking. You can display fancy material possessions for guests to compliment, and still never feel like you’re worthy enough. You can use your belongings to express your personality but never truly figure out who you really are. You can relive a memory a thousand times while cradling an item, but the real sentiment is the one you’ve projected from your heart. You are only as happy and fulfilled as the way you take care of yourself in your mind, body, and spirit. You can lose everything you own and still be a whole and happy person. Now that I know this, I can’t go back. With fewer belongings, I have lived a fuller life. That is one of the few things I know for certain. That was 2012, and I managed to keep that laptop until 2018 and replace it on my own terms.
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TRIGGER WARNING: Last 2 of 4 images may be sensitive, as they contain fire damage.
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