Downsizing/Uprising

Downsizing/Uprising

We met a couple from Botswana while we lived in Dún Laoghaire, Ireland. That’s just interesting, isn’t it? But what I’m going to share is how they moved from a two‑bedroom apartment to one of the suites in our building called Niche Living. The typical suite there is 183 square feet. If a normal two‑bedroom apartment runs 850+ square feet, you can imagine the shift they had to make.

Beckie and I showed up with clothes. These folks showed up with decisions to make. How do you change your life that dramatically?

Now that we’ve moved back to the States, we’ve gone from our tiny Irish space to a two‑bedroom apartment. BUT… we’ve also been handed our accumulated possessions from years of living — before Ireland.

We divested ourselves of a lot before our adventure. Still, there was plenty that felt like “us,” so it stayed, stored and waiting our return. And now here we are, sorting through what is necessary and what is not.

Living for a year with a minimum number of changes of clothes makes you deeply consider… how many pairs of pants do I actually need? I was in church just a week ago where the pastor had lost all his belongings in a recent California wildfire, and he said he was facing this very question (for a very different reason).

All of this made me think about what STUFF has a grip on me — why, and how strong is that grip?

I come from a family of collectors. If you ever said, “I like that,” in my family — WHAM! Every Christmas, birthday, and “just thinking of you” moment included it as a gift. So now we’ve moved, seriously, to a point in life where we’re asking our kids and ourselves: What has meaning to you? How important is this? And why do I/should I hang on to it?

Living small didn’t just teach us what mattered. It quietly loosened the grip of things we once assumed were essential. It disenthralled us — from habits, from patterns, from the quiet tyranny of “this is just what we do.” And once you’re disenthralled, you start seeing your possessions not as anchors of identity, but as artifacts of who you used to be.

Clothes have gone to the Salvation Army, along with a bunch of other things. We’re giving up more and more as we realize we don’t need what has simply been gathered over years.

Fortunately, I’ve never been a clotheshorse. But books…

Let me say that I gave away a portion of my books to the last three churches I served, and I still have boxes of them. I mean, I gave away a third of my books to each of two different churches… and there are five — okay, six — bookshelves still left.

In one church, the pastor’s study had shelves lining three walls, floor to ceiling. The guy who built them told the church, “No one will ever have this many books.” He came by later to see for himself and admitted he was wrong.

So here we are… sorting and dispersing and passing on and distributing. It is walking into moment after moment of recognizing: I used these as tools in a time and place, but that era is done. I was this person, and these expressed the truth of that time, but I am stepping into future. I’m becoming someone new because I live in a new time and in a new place. There will be other tools that I will need now.

We have every room set except the last, and now that one is paring down. We’re at the point of looking at poignant history and asking if it is necessary now. It’s brought us to the hard choices of: If this was gone… would I miss it?

Someone described this kind of moment as “erasing your youth.” I can’t see it that way. I see it as touching, with enjoyment, who and what I was and did — and then releasing it so I can step into what has not happened yet… in me, through me, and for me.

I have a simple piece — I won’t describe it — but it comes from a church I started from scratch. It carries an intimacy. A history. A calling. And now I’m asking myself, Is it time to let it go?

That’s a crucial choice. A heartfelt choice… which I have now made.

Living in our tiny space taught our hearts how to make those choices. That was a gift to our souls. Now we’re able to give away treasure that no longer has the same grip it once did. And now we’re able to enjoy what is truly treasure.

We’re finding that the things that last deepest… are hope, and love, and faith. Those will last as long as joy — which lasts forever.