How four suitcases and a temporary apartment taught me the difference between a want, a need, and a weight.
There is a peculiar freedom that comes from having very little. It’s a truth I thought I understood, until I was forced to live it. Our great migration was conducted with four small suitcases. That capsule wardrobe, which I wrote about with pride, wasn’t just a packing strategy, it was the first step in a quiet, profound revolution in my soul.
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Six months later, I look around our home in Lisbon and realize: the revolution stuck. It permeated everything. I look at my past life, at the home we left behind, and see not cherished possessions, but clutter. And I see, with startling clarity, the categories of things I simply no longer buy.
1. Aspirational Clothing.
I used to buy clothes for a fantasy life. The ‘if I lose five kilos’ dress. The someday garden party’ shawl. The ‘work mode’ blazer that I wore maybe twice. My closet was a museum of my potential selves. Now, I own what I love, what fits this body today, and what works for the life I actually live: walking, commuting, sitting in cafes, on sidewalks, enjoying the river front. If it can’t be mixed and matched with four to five other things, it doesn’t come home. The fantasy is gone, replaced by the comfort of the authentic.
2. Single-Use Kitchen Gadgets.
The avocado slicer.The egg separator. The unitasker lurking in the back of every drawer. Our Blueground apartment was equipped with one good knife, a pot, a pan, and a spatula. And you know what? We cooked every meal. We entertained. We didn’t miss the garlic press for a second. I’ve learned that skill, not gadgetry, makes a cook. My kitchen now is a testament to utility, not consumerism.
3. Home Decor
The decorative vase with no flowers.The set of ornate trays too nice to use. The throw pillow that matches nothing but was on sale. Living in a beautifully staged, ready-to-move-in space was a revelation. It had just enough: a plant, one piece of art, a soft blanket. It felt calm, not empty. It showed me that decor should serve a mood or a function, not just fill a shelf. Now, everything in our home is either deeply loved, frequently used, or both. There is no ‘just in case’drawer for knick-knacks.
4. Bulk ‘Savings’
The giant pack of 30 toilet rolls from the warehouse store.The buy-one-get-one-free deal on a condiment we barely like. This was the illusion of thrift, which actually created storage wars and waste. In a city with a mercearia on every corner, I buy what we need for the week. It’s fresher, it takes less mental energy to manage, and our apartment isn’t a stockroom. The savings were never worth the cost in space and stress.
5. The Backup of the Backup.
A second bottle of shampoo before the first is half empty.An extra phone charger for every room. My past self was haunted by a fear of running out, of being unprepared. But this constant insurance purchasing just created visual noise and forgotten duplicates. Letting go of the backups was really about letting go of that low-grade anxiety. We have one. When it’s done, we’ll get another. The world, it turns out, still has shops.
The Catalyst: The Blueground Mirror.
That temporary,fully-furnished apartment was the clearest mirror held up to my old life. It was serene, functional, and completely devoid of my stuff. And it was enough. More than enough. It was peaceful. It forced me to confront the truth: back home, despite claiming to be a minimalist, I was a curator of clutter. Every item had a ‘but it might be useful’ or a ‘this was a gift’ story attached. I was managing objects, not living in a space.
This unburdening isn’t about austerity. It’s about precision. It’s about spending my finite energy on experiences, connections, and the simple joy of an uncluttered surface, rather than on the acquisition, organization, and eventual disposal of things.
I no longer buy stuff to fill a home. I cultivate a home that has space. For breath, for thought, for the people in it, and for the beautiful, ginkgo-yellow light of a Lisbon afternoon to stream, unobstructed, across the floor.
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