Minimalist Move: I'm in Agony As I Separate Myself From Stuff

The picture above is a perfect capture of how I feel during my minimalist move process: Behind me is that light, airy minimalist ideal I am longing to create. It’s bright, beautiful, and has room to breathe.  Then in the way of that goal is me: dark, shadowy, and overcast with the attachment I have to these meaningless material things.
There’s no other way to say this, so I’m going to say it plainly: getting rid of your stuff is hard.  Being free of it is liberating, but getting rid of it is so painful, confusing, time consuming, difficult, and emotional that it can reduce a grown woman to a temper tantrum of sitting on the side of the bathtub, crying and praying in desperation.
It’s true.  I prayed and cried and got so angry as I begged God to help me sever my connections to all this stuff that I don’t need, don’t want, and don’t care about anyway.  I got so mad as I looked at the items in my tiny bathroom alone that totaled in the hundreds.  That’s right – I said hundreds.
You see, I’ve been purging all of my family of five’s belongings for over a month.  I started on January 21, to be exact, and have been decluttering every single day working towards a full minimalist lifestyle before we sell our house and move out of Alaska.   Yes, I’ve been taking carloads of items to charity, the reuse center, friends’ houses as gifts, etc., every single day for 46 days.
Let me restate that for dramatic effect:

I’ve been taking full CAR LOADS of items out of my house EVERY DAY for 46 days.

46 Days!

Before I started this project, I was already a minimalist in my mind working on reflecting that in my lifestyle.  My family lives pretty light for a house with 2 babies and a toddler and we’ve been paring down for a few years now.  I had no idea we still had so much stuff that it would take this long to get rid of it all.
On January 21, my husband and I decided I would take a month off from work to prepare us for the move, including going minimalist as much as possible with all non-essentials.  I would then pack the rest of our items so we could move out of our house and put it up for sale.
30 days seemed like a reasonable amount of time to me to declutter an already somewhat minimalist house.  My family has less clutter than anyone else I personally know.  I am embarrassed now to say that I actually thought I could finish this whole process in less than my 30 allotted days and roll back in to the office ahead of schedule, triumphant, and ready to relax with my new minimalist life free of the stuff and the clutter.
At 46 days in, as so disgustingly painted in the picture at the outset of this post, not only was I not done, I was not even close.  I was crying like a frustrated toddler that tries so hard to be big and accomplish “big people” things like writing their name perfectly for the first time.  I was a bawling baby in God’s hands begging Him to take me out of my agony and help me make these material possessions go away.

An Inventory is a Good Idea – No, A Great One

I had no inventory of starting items, so I don’t know how many things I started with.  I can safely estimate it was upwards of 500,000.  It could have been upwards of a million, there’s just no way in the realm of possibility to accurately guess.
At this point, I could stop and do an inventory tonight (and I might), because the sheer amount of belongings has been reduced so much.  An inventory is a good idea – no, a great one – because it’s easier to make decisions on items listed on paper instead of tangible things you are holding in your hand that have memories attached to them.  Plus, with a before and after count, you can see how drastic of a change you’ve made.

The Minimalist Move Continues

Not only have I been away from work for 46 days (bad for me, bad for my company), but I’m running out of emotional fuel for the downsizing process.   I’ve taken pictures during the process which I’ll be able to post soon, which are shocking as I look back on them.
I’m so ready for it to end and to be at that happy point where I walk from room to room and breathe a sigh of contentment at being able to be here with my family, not with my things.