It wasn’t part of some grand plan. I wanted to go to Europe to see my daughter, and I needed a way to pay for it, so we rented out the top part of our house for the summer. We packed up what we needed, moved downstairs and figured we’d live with less for a few months, make some money, travel, and then move back upstairs.
How we ended up in the basement
And then we went everywhere.
London, Paris, Berlin, Switzerland, Turkey. We moved through airports and train stations, slept in unfamiliar rooms, lived out of suitcases and figured things out in places where we didn’t always speak the language. It was wonderful and a little chaotic, and I loved it.
Then we came home. And I went back to the basement.
The basement is ugly. There’s really no other way to describe it. It doesn’t have the light or the proportions or any of the things that make the upstairs feel like home. It’s a basement. After travelling for months, I was living in it.
And I didn’t really care.
Learning to live with less
We put most of our things away. I made a little corner for myself, set up my desk, brought down a few things I liked and got on with it. We lived with much less and life carried on.
When you live surrounded by the same furniture, objects and routines every day, you stop noticing how much of it has become part of your life. You assume you need all of it because it’s there.
Then you put almost everything away and realize how little you actually need to make a space work.
I still wanted a place for my books. I still wanted somewhere to work. I still wanted a few things around me that I liked looking at. So I brought down what mattered and left the rest upstairs.
Coming back upstairs
And then, after a few months, we moved back upstairs. I knew I loved my house. I mean, I knew. But coming back was a whole other thing. I really, really love my house. Like, if a house was a person, I would marry it.
I had been feeling pretty proud of myself for being able to give it all up for a while. Look at me! I can live with less! I can let go! I’m free from all my stuff! And then I walked upstairs and started crying. OMG, I missed my house.
I missed the light. I missed the rooms. I missed the things we’d collected over the years. I missed all the little details I hadn’t noticed in ages because they had become so familiar. I missed walking through the front door and being surrounded by this place that had slowly, over many years, become ours.
I loved coming home. And somehow, after living without it, I loved it more.
What the basement taught me
Living without something for a while doesn’t mean it wasn’t important. You can let something go and still love it. You can discover you don’t actually need something and, at the same time, realize how much joy it gives you.
Maybe that’s what the basement taught me: I don’t need as much as I thought I did. And that’s actually pretty freeing.
I can pack a suitcase and go somewhere I’ve never been. I can sleep in a strange room, figure out a new city, live with less and be completely fine. I can let go of things when I need to. And then I can come home and be ridiculously happy to see my house. I don’t think those things contradict each other.
Maybe knowing what you can live without makes it easier to appreciate what you choose to keep. I’m pretty sure I’m going to remember that.
