First of all, if you've dug this far back in the archive... WELL DONE! You made it all the way back to my first post and you are a champion! If you've made it this far, I can only assume that you really love my content and want to know more about the story behind the blog!
Now, without further ado, allow me to say this:
I DID NOT WANT TO START A BLOG.
To clarify, I will make this edit: I did not want to start another blog. I have started (umm) one... two... three... maybe four blogs? I am proud of the content I produced with all of them, but here's the thing: I lack consistency. I would blog regularly for a couple of weeks and then miss a few days here and there, and then miss a week here and there, and then a month or two, and then I was embarrassed to go back and explain that I was just irresponsible and busy so I completely gave up!
So... why did I decide to start a brand-new blog after all of those failures?
This answer isn't exactly simple, so let me take you back a couple of years and we'll begin there.
About two years ago, my husband began a journey to minimalism. He was miserable at work and unhappy at home, and he somehow stumbled upon a blog from The Minimalists and began telling me all about "how to live a meaningful life with less," which is their catch phrase.
At first, I was completely cool with Thomas telling me all about how these two guys had gotten rid of, like, 98.9% of their belongings and lived in empty houses (well, that's what I got from his talking, at least). And then came the fateful day when Thomas told me that he was going to go through his closet and get rid of most of it.
Now, in order to understand the complete horror that I felt, you need to understand something important: I had been working hard for ALMOST FIVE YEARS to transform Thomas into a well-dressed man. When we met in college, he exclusively wore superhero t-shirts and a perpetually-filthy-looking black and white zip-up hoodie. He was an absolute nerdy mess and I loved it... but when you get married, you have to start looking and acting like an adult, right? So, we had spent a few years building up a collection of nicer t-shirts, sweaters, button-ups, and cardigans. He had several pairs of dress slacks for work, and a ton of shoes. I took a lot of pride in his wardrobe because I gave myself complete credit for it. ;)
So, when he said that he would be getting rid of most of his clothes, he was essentially telling me that he was going to completely destroy this masterpiece that I had spent years building. I was absolutely devastated as he pulled item after item out of the closet and put most of it in the "to donate" pile. When the massacre was over, he literally had 5 large garbage bags that were absolutely stuffed with clothes. I begged him to keep them and we made a compromise, with Thomas agreeing to keep the items in the laundry room for a month in case he needed more clothes. We agreed that anything that didn't get pulled from the bags over the next month would be donated.
I can confidently pinpoint that evening as the one when I knew that our lives were going to drastically change. As someone who thrives on consistency and routine, I was absolutely horrified. Guys, I can't even begin to explain how I felt. I literally thought my life was over. If you're thinking,
"Okay, she's being seriously overdramatic,"
you're completely right! But, overdramatic or not, I knew that I needed someone to tell me that my life wasn't over and that I would, in fact, survive.
So, I did what everyone does in times of dire need: I Googled.
I searched phrases like, "my spouse is a minimalist and I'm not" and "what to do when your husband is a minimalist," and do you know what? There were lots of blogs that I found... written by minimalistic people whose spouses were in the same position as I was. (To clarify, that would be the equivalent of Thomas writing a blog post about me, who was resisting the change.) The advice that they were giving was along the lines of,
- just stay consistent and your spouse will come around
- live your life simply and your partner will see the benefits
- just keep doing what you're doing and your family will eventually want to join you
And, guys, it made me MAD. It made me RED HOT MAD that I couldn't find one single blog post that would help me! It INFURIATED me that these minimalists believed that they could change their spouses and partners and families just by being themselves. I couldn't believe that I couldn't find a single resource that would help me navigate the choppy waters that we were approaching. Most importantly, I absolutely REFUSED to allow Thomas to change my views on the matter. I was going to resist it even if it killed me.
And I'm not going to lie... there were times when I honestly thought that our marriage was on the rocks. There were some nights when I was so mad at Thomas for doing something "minimalistic" (a phrase that I spat in disdain) that we didn't speak before bed. There were times that I bought things that we didn't need, just because I knew it would make him mad.
(#passiveagressive to the MAX over here)
(#passiveagressive to the MAX over here)
It took a lot of time and communication and mistakes, on both of our parts, to make it work. So, now that we're in a good rhythm with our lives and our home, I decided to begin the blog that I wished I had been able to find when Thomas/we began this long and treacherous journey. I want to help anyone who thinks that their life is literally going to be destroyed by the idea of minimalism and simplifying because, listen, I've been there. And I'm here to tell the tale.
Stay tuned for more!
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