Able to drop the weight

I am not a hoarder. My grandmother had an entire room of her house full of acrylic yarn, and her sister not only had a room full of craft supplies but slept in a chair because she needed the bed as a space to store more stuff. If that wasn't impetus enough, I move a lot and I've never had a parental garage in which to stash things I might use someday. Ciro is similarly inclined for similar reasons, including a great aunt who never cooks but whose cabinets are jammed full of dozens of boxed dish sets.

However, Ciro and I have each also been poor for quite a long time, and there are things we've held on to because if there came a time we would need them, we would need them and would not be in a position to spare that money. So we have held on to disintegrating towels, infinite tatty bedsheets, clothing that can be layered to hide holes . . . the sorts of things, in short, that keep you warm if the heat's shut off. This is the first year we've been financially comfortable in a way that is unlikely to be interrupted, and so I can finally throw these things out. We have held on to a spare television; I've kept copies of CDs I didn't like so that if I got bored of my music I'd still have something fresh. It is a luxury to be able to pare back; "living simply and ascetically" only works if you have the resources to buy quickly as needed.