I’ve been obsessed with owning my own home since I was a child. My space, a place I can decorate as I want, have what I want where I want, a place away from the world. I used to fantasise about living like a monk or a hermit having just one room to call mine. Maybe it was in a cave or maybe it was a small monastery cell with a window near the ceiling.
I went through a phase of wanting to own a one-acre farm so I could grow all my own food without realising just how much food I’d have to grow if I was going to successfully feed myself for an entire year. I went through my living in a yurt phase. A family size tent phase. And of course, a tiny house phase. My mind has been busy trying to come up with ways to own my own home while keeping costs as low as possible. Not easy in this day and age.
Apart from the short obsession with having a multi-room house, mostly it’s been about having a small area to call my own. When I discovered tiny homes I was excited! Here at last was something I could make possible. A fully contained micro apartment that would be all mine! When I saw how much this was going to cost to build, my dream was shattered. It seems I need an amount equal to the deposit for a house to purchase one. Great. What do you do if you have maybe $1,000 you could scrounge up for this project?
At the crux of all this was my sense of complete insecurity in this world. I’ve never felt fully safe, fully secure in this world and I desperately wanted to feel that. I wanted a physical space that I owned, that was mine and could never be taken away. The reality of this world is, that doesn’t exist anywhere. Anything and everything can be taken away from you, from natural disasters to legal actions. To make it even more complicated, I wanted to have the security of owning my own space and not having to keep paying to have it – no fees, no insurance, not rates or taxes.
That’s never going to happen, so what next? Well, I could always build a home inside a passenger van or a small truck. Great! First, I need to get over my fear of driving and that’s never going to happen. Next?
Right now I am living in a hoarder’s paradise. No, I’m not a hoarder but you’d never know by looking around my home. I’m what is called a chaotic collector. I can’t buy just one cute dish, I have to buy the whole set. And what if I only need 2 for now but in a couple of years I need 3 and they don’t make them anymore? I can’t have mismatched items, either.
the place I’m currently living in came about because I would constantly come up with new decorating ideas and obsessively buy items for that, but never put them out because I can’t do that until I have it all. It would all sit in boxes under the bed or in the spare room and then I’d suddenly change my mind and want a completely different style and colour theme. So, get the new items while pushing the others to the side (not actually use or get rid of them). Not just with decorating, this would also happen with new hobby ideas, new study passions, constantly buying more and more and filling up the space. Right now I have large packing boxes full of items I need to donate. The basic difference between a hoarder and a chaotic collector is I’m not emotionally attached to my items. I can get rid of them whenever I want, the problem is my executive dysfunction means I don’t know how to organise it all to get rid of and where to start, so I freeze.
I keep watching decluttering, organising and minimalism videos to give me ideas and spur me on and it works. I feel very inspired and motivated, then I look around at just how MUCH there is to deal with and I become overwhelmed. It takes me about 2 months to clean out and organise half a room because of this.
What if my definition of home is wrong?
I asked myself a question today that has turned everything on its head. What if my definition of home is wrong?
What if ‘home’ is not the physical building I own but the possessions I put in it? How might that change how I approach organising my life? What if ‘home’ because everything I could fit into one suitcase? Not to travel, but to be able to move around if I needed to? To have the flexibility and adaptability I need to feel is part of my life if I want it?
Maybe it’s because of all the moving around as a child, but I don’t like feeling anchored to one place as if chained to it. I need to feel I can walk away at any time if I choose. Not that I do, but I need the option. Not owning a physical building means I don’t need to have an ongoing income to afford it. I don’t need to be locked down to one place forever. Don’t have to be stuck living in an environment that is changing in ways I can’t cope with. Not stuck living somewhere with neighbours that change often and seem to have less respect for other people (playing super loud music at any time of the day or night. Revving car engines at 11pm at night – hoon racing at 3 am).
What if my sense of security and safety can be found in one suitcase that I can up and move whenever I want? If the neighbourhood changes, if I can no longer afford that rent, if they want to demolish my house to make way for a Vogon hyperspace bypass? This idea excites me for two reasons, 1. I no longer need to workout all the complexity of trying to afford a physical building and 2. my driving urge to take up less and less space on this Earth. To travel lightly with only the truly essential needs. It means I no longer feel compelled to have a small space that would become physically claustrophobic in no time and try to plan out the bathroom, kitchen, living space and bedroom in what is little more than a shoe box. It means the physical space I take up is limited to a suitcase but can be spread out over a football field It means my ‘home’ basically becomes a TARIS.
Now the question becomes, what do I consider essential that I could fit into a suitcase?