Nature abhors a vacuum

People have a tendency to fill up their living space with “stuff” – all
kinds of stuff. Stuff can be pictures, books, toys, shoes, clothes,
furniture, electronics, kitchen-ware, tools, collectibles,
knick-knacks, …  The list is as endless as the various likes/desires
of the people that occupy this planet. Everyone has something they’d
like more of or can’t be without. Everyone has something they have a
hard time letting go of. But, we all have the same problem no matter
where we live – finite living space.

When we moved into our first apartment, it seemed big and wonderful and
awesome – and empty. So, we proceeded to buy stuff to “fill it up.” We
bought a couch, chairs, a dining table, dressers, an entertainment
center, a desk, hangers, cleaning supplies, …  Then, to our surprise,
we needed more things to fill the empty closets – clothes, dresser
drawers – undies/t-shirts, bathroom cabinets – toiletries, kitchen
cabinets – pots/pans/dishes/food-stuffs, entertainment center – TV/home
theater/stereo/DVDs/CDs, desk – computer/paper/folders/writing
material/organizers, … Within a VERY short period of time, the
apartment that had seemed so big, so wonderful, had become too small,
crowded, cramped, tight. Unable to see what had changed, we made the
only choice possible – we moved to a house!

I’ll never forget how it felt walking through our brand new house. The
spaces were huge! The open feeling was wonderful! It had closets
everywhere! The basement was like a huge cavern! The garage was
massive! It was incredible! We’d never be able to fill this up!!!

Wrong.

I remember telling my Mother-in-law how happy Deb was, that we’d never
be able to fill this up like we did the apartment. Her answer was
simple, “Somehow, the empty spaces always get filled.” She was right.
We went from a stuff-filled apartment to an empty-feeling house to a
stuff-filled house all in a short two year span. And we STILL didn’t
realize what was going on. But, we had stuff!

The following year, we were bit by the travel bug. We wanted to go see
the USA – fulltime! The only way we could afford to travel fulltime
would be to sell the house. That meant getting rid of some of our
stuff. This was a scary thought. All our neighbors had stuff. Our
friends had stuff. Our families had stuff. Everyone had
stuff! But, if we were going to fulltime, we wouldn’t be able to take
all our stuff with us.

We started going through boxes of things we’d never opened in five
years. In the process, we discovered a lot of stuff we’d collected.
Some things were keep-sakes. Others were junk that seemed important at
the time. Somehow, a lot of stuff ended up in boxes that should have
been dealt with immediately. We could see the long term effects of
procrastination – and it wasn’t pretty.

Still, we had to pare things down if we were going to travel in 1/6th
the living space of the house. We continued going through rooms and
getting rid of old clothes, shoes, toys, shop supplies, kitchen-ware,
work-out equipment, lumber, paint, and anything else we could find. It
took several months of off-and-on work and it felt good to be free of
that old stuff. Finally, we stood back and looked at what we’d done.

It wasn’t enough.

Even though we’d gotten rid of a lot of stuff, somehow, we’d
accumulated more. Not as much as when we’d started but, it was enough
to be depressing. It took us a while to get started again – and we
collected a bit more stuff as we got over our pain. But, the travel bug
is persistent. We started again and reduced each area even more. We got
rid of more stuff. We did it quicker this time so-as not to allow the
new stuff time to fill in the spaces. This worked better than the last
time and the house started looking more like a home rather than a
tornado’s aftermath. Again, we stood back and looked at what we’d done.

Still not enough.

We had gotten rid of a lot of stuff but, there was always more – darn!
So, we kept at it, getting rid of more stuff until the house was
actually looking uncluttered. In fact, it actually looked like a
picture of some showcase house people shoot pictures of for those home
decorating magazines. We felt really good this time!

And it still wasn’t enough.

It did, however, help us sell the house. After all, if you think about
it, the prospective home buyer wants to see an huge empty space to fit
all their stuff into, not your stuff cluttering it all up. So, after
about a year and a half of decluttering, the house sold. The dream was
beginning to happen. Things had fallen into place quite nicely since we
bought our future home – Tiffin’s Allegro Bus – two days after the
house sold. Now, we had no choice but to kick the process into
overdrive! After all, we were closing in 30 days and had a house to
move into storage, an RV to move into, and more stuff to get rid of.

We started putting everything we wanted to keep into storage. We gave
things away to friends and family. We donated things to Goodwill and
church.

Still too much to fit in the RV.

We threw stuff out. We put more stuff in storage. We gave more stuff
away.

Still too much stuff.

We repeated the above process again and again until it looked like we
might finally be ready. We parked the RV out front and moved stuff into
the rig. We put in the dishes, the cookware, the toiletries, the
towels, the clothes, the food, the tools, the toys, the computers (I
still work and have to pay for all this stuff, after all), … and we
discovered something along the way – we still had too
much stuff!!!

At this point, we had a few hours before the buyer would take
possession of the house. So, we took the remaining items that were
suddenly “unimportant” and forced them into storage. The rest were
stuffed into the RV.

Note: For some reason, storage companies believe you can
fit a 3-4 bedroom house into a 10×20 storage unit. I don’t know what
kind of house they’re thinking because we had a hard time fitting our
stuff after getting rid of over half the stuff that had been in our
4-bedroom house!!!

At last, the time had come to close the doors to the house. Everything
was out. Now, the RV was truly stuffed. We had boxes in the center
isle, the bedroom, on the couch, and in the shower. More stuff to go
through and get rid of – later.

It took another month to figure out what to keep and what we didn’t
need. Some of the things in storage ended up back in the RV. Some of
the stuff in the RV went to storage. Living in a campground near the
storage site helped immensely since we could make trips back and forth
as needed. Don’t get me wrong, we didn’t live right next door. It was
20 miles away – which also helped ensure we didn’t needlessly run back
and forth. In the end, we had things in their places and very little
empty space in the basement. We were finally ready to hit the road with
the stuff we thought we needed.

Over the past three years, we’ve started collecting stuff – again. Like
an apartment or house, you can find places to put stuff in an RV. But,
you run out of space VERY quickly. At this point, you get creative and
find ways of storing stuff that you don’t think of in a house. When
creativity fails is when the boxes and bins start to collect on the
floor. These are often accompanied by piles of stuff that gather on the
dash, the nightstand, the counters, the chairs, etc… The
piles/boxes/bins have to move to “safe” places while you move and get
pulled out when you finish moving. The basement is packed to the top
and requires a solid spelunker to find the important things. Once
again, it’s time to get rid of the stuff.

I believe it’s very common for folks to collect things as they go
through life. Some things are important in the moment, others have
importance that lasts forever. The trick is to sift through the chaff
and find the things that really matter in the long run. Granted, it’s
hard to decide which items are keepers when you’re living it. Even so,
some of us have a tendency to fill our spaces – no matter what size
space we happen to be in. The only answer is to keep weeding out what
isn’t needed. One rule of thumb I’ve heard often is very simple in
words but hard in practice:

For everything that comes into the RV, something has to
leave.

Again, easier said than done for some.

Fortunately, an RV doesn’t provide us with as much space as an
apartment or house.

Or, for those less inclined to refrain from filling the spaces,
unfortunately