How downsizing and full time RV Life gave me a new perspective & gave way to throwing out more than just items.

I can’t take credit for how this post came to be. That all goes to my cousin Amanda who I have never physically met, but I feel more connected to than people I have had in my life forever. We have a Marco Polo thread with video messages between us and another friend. We ponder things in our lives, ask each other advice, share our surroundings, give knowledge when we learn new things, and sometimes we ask each other innocent questions that end up being much deeper than originally intended.

That is what happened one morning as I listened to a video message of my cousin talking about organization & how it seems things never get back to the place they belong. (In my sticks & bricks life I had “Kristie piles” that looked neat but they were literally shit that I made look pretty by stacking it nice! Lol). She then says something along these lines “Oh hey Kristie, I know you were dreading going through clothes to downsize to your RV & had showed us piles of what was going, what was being donated, and what you were pitching. How did that go? I know you said you put only enough to fill the bed of your truck in storage so how did it feel to get rid of so much? Do you miss the stuff or was it like an emotional release for your mental health to not deal with it anymore?” I stopped the video and sat down. Not until that moment, 3 weeks into RV Life, did I even stop to really think about all the shit I literally just pitched down the trash chute! I hadn’t thought about how bad I was dreading the task of downsizing. I just know that about a day into going hyper mode I was cool throwing everything away! That will be shocking to hear for some because I don’t throw ANYTHING away that still has use!

After some back and forth and then speaking with my husband, I knew that downsizing had much bigger implications than just having less physical shit. So much more was cleared in the process! I thought about the mindset that grew inside me while I bagged 25 garbage bags of clothing to get rid of. I got rid of my need to make others comfortable with my choices. I got rid of the fantasy that I still had connections with some who clearly didn’t feel connected to me. I threw out the desire to please and go above for those who had expectations of me based on someone I wasn’t anymore. I pitched out hurt I felt about recent trauma. I trashed old beliefs & patterns that didn’t resonate anymore. I even did a FB Live on Mystikal Rootz & spoke to followers about the new found “I don’t give a fuck” I had embraced. I stopped begging people to be part of my life or find time to spend with me before I headed off into the sunset with my husband, dog, and travel trailer. I began to have zero emotional attachment to things & instead reflected on the memories that were attached to the things. Keeping those memories in my heart made it almost too easy to throw away items. Others would eventually pitch these items as garbage if they were tasked to go through my stuff when my time on this earth is done anyway, so why wait? (Being transparent here, I kept all the dead relative stuff out of fear that if I threw away a kitchen mixer from the 1970’s my grandmother would come haunt me! Lol. My storage is mostly those types of items along with keepsakes from the birth of my 23 yr old miracle son)

Now that I have been sitting on 35 acres in our RV, an hour from the highway, in the northern Arizona desert, a month later, do I miss any of it? The answer is an overwhelming HELL NO! Oddly enough, I could trash more!! The things I felt I MUST have with me, which wasn’t much, I have under the trailer taking up storage space. My fear of taking too much and having no storage was very unfounded. We have plenty and I STILL could pitch out more with no anxiety about it at all. I don’t miss all the objects that took up space in my apartment, because that is literally all they did. Rarely was I asked “Where did you get this?” to tell the story behind the object. I actually find myself talking about the memories behind some of that stuff I threw out more now than I ever did when it was right in front of me. See! I took the memories with me!

Now, how has all of this impacted my mental health? Well I am here to tell you that if I had known what a huge impact trashing the clutter of yesterdays memories was going to make, I would have done it in April when my OCD Anxiety, Situational Anxiety, & Panic Disorder reared it’s ugly head in the middle of a life changing shit show! Marie Kondo has known her shit this whole time and I had laughed at it because I believed EVERYTHING would speak to my heart! I also knew that living the full time RV life can be cramped if things don’t have a place. My biggest focus since we bought the RV was mental health! There needed to be a slide out, there needed to be sections, there needed to be room for personal space, and shit needed to ALWAYS be put where it goes! I did research on mental health and RV living because you really hear some sad stories about those who were not prepared. They pictured InstaGram Reel type situations, which are not reality for Van Life or RV Life. (I for sure didn’t believe I would be on insanely beautiful adventures every day like those portray) Most of what I read was just making sure things have a spot, you have space, you hang up familiar photos, be prepared to fix something daily, and when things go wonky use laughter because most of what you will go through is totally normal.

So, with all that info and me going crazy throwing everything away, my mental health is stellar compared to where I was a month ago when we began our new life. I have had only 1 panic attack shortly after arriving and it was minimal. We have the most beautiful setting we are parked in, I have been communicating my needs to my husband who is making sure things get to their spots, I wake up at 5 am without an alarm excited about the day. I feel creativity coming back in full force and my worth is at the forefront of the multiple ways I can use my skills, tools, advice, and abilities to help others while earning income. See, your inner critic likes to tell you that you’re worthless and I had been believing her. Last week I punched that bitch in the throat and offered a paid membership FB group for women to join and be more supported by me one on one with other women! As the notifications came in for interest, I knew we had done the right thing by reinventing our lives. I knew leaving the familiar for the unknown was healing me. I believed in my worth again & forgave myself for settling for less.

The full time RV life definitely isn’t easier than being in a sticks and bricks house. We are very nomadic and improvise frequently as we are far away from stores and amenities. My husband has a part time job in town to build up our savings, but the only people I have physical contact with on a consistent basis is him, our 2 best friends, their son, and our combined animals. We still have loose ends to tie up in the town we moved from AND have responsibilities multiple states away. Money is tight because we put our entire life savings into this adventure so we have no plan B. THIS IS IT! Just a short time ago all these factors would have already had me in a spin multiple times for a length of time. Yet the ONE panic attack I have had was over if I could properly trim my sweet 8 lb Maltese, Buddy, without him being scared of clippers that aren’t for dogs. (We accomplished the task and he did great!). The experience of actually living this life the last 30 days has been full on proof of how the act of decluttering your surroundings has major mental health benefits. The act of throwing it all away also helped me throw out old clutter taking up space in my head that kept me in old patterns with people and situations.

I RELEASED IT ALL WHEN I THREW IT ALL AWAY!!!

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