I don't want to be a minimalist anymore
I am an expat. My parents are expats. My grandparents are expats. War and opportunity, the classics. Mine was education but it was also bigger than that. I wanted a new home. And I found one, for a while. But as much as I tried, I never felt fully settled. I moved house every year for the last nine years. It was not always intentional but it was always time to leave.
When people ask me where I'm from, I tend to pause and assess what they’re actually wondering. Oftentimes they can’t figure out my ethnicity. I look racially ambiguous and my accent is hard to place. Other times, they want to know if I’m local to the area.
I guess what they want to know and then I indulge them with the history of my entire lineage anyway because anything shorter feels incomplete.
My last move was intercontinental. To fit my life into four suitcases, I gave away many of my belongings to friends, charity shops, the local library and the trash. For the last decade, whenever I’ve gone to buy anything of a considerable size, I’ve thought about how easily it could fit into a box, a suitcase or an Uber. Even then, there were still too many clothes, books, board games, irons, utensils, foldable Ikea boxes, backpacks.
My minimalism was not an aesthetic choice. It was born out of a jadedness that grew over time from failed attempts to settle. I would buy things like a TV and a shoe rack and they would weigh heavily on my shoulders as I helped an Uber driver with a bad back load them into the trunk of his car. It started to feel cruel and silly.
I let go of the need to want. The one and done became a lifestyle. One pan for my meals, one bag for the everyday, one e-reader for my books. I only restocked products when I fully ran out and I only accepted gifts in the forms of vouchers or experiences. I developed a real dislike for gifts just for the sake of gifting, collections for the sake of collecting.
I don’t want to be a minimalist anymore.
I want to buy something comically big and heavy, like a grandfather clock.
I want to own things just because they’d be fun to own. A big globe, an electric incense burner, bulbs that come with a remote control.
I want to paint my walls and collect books again.
I want a radio and a guest bedroom.
I want to pick up my neighbor’s mail when they’re out of town and trust them with my plants when I’m out of town.
I want to be able to say where I'm from without any hesitation.
I don’t want to be a minimalist anymore.