As we finally pack the Defender for summer in Tasmania, I'm excited to be living in a tiny space again. I'm never happier, to be honest. There's something very liberating about packing everything you need into a really small space. Everything must have it's place, and if your house blew up just as you left, it wouldn't matter, because you can survive on what you've got on your tiny home on wheels.

I'm not new to living in small spaces. Check me out at 24, living in a '76 Toyota Corolla as I travelled round Australia. I learnt really quickly that the best things you carry are your memories and your love of adventure. Oh, and a big jar of vegemite and a bag of lentils. No joke, I reckon I lived off homemade dahl and vegemite sandwiches - I had very little money. Curtains were towels pegged to a string. I had a single mattress, a backpack, a gas stove and my surfboard. What else does a girl need?

That's just it, isn't it? Minimalism teaches you what you need over what you want. I've learnt to not be attached to much. Honestly, I don't care if my house burns down. Everything is replaceable. You can't take anything with you when you die, and attaching yourself to anything just brings suffering. Sure, there's things that really irk me that I've lost or that have been stolen, but that's something I'm practicing non attachment to.

After all, most of the biggest adventure across the world have very little stuff - people bikepack, backpack, hike, ride horses across Mongolia or sail across the Pacific. None of that would happen if one clings to the leather sofa one's had for twenty years or the photo albums you could put on a cloud and look at from the top of a mountain if you so chose. I know peole will list all the possessions that are important to them but if you're doing that, you've missed the point of minimalism. Minimalism, from my perspective, is about being attached to nothing. Nada. Zilch.

When I think about driving down to Morocco this year, I think of how free I felt, not that I didn't have a fully functioning kitchen or a reasonable pair of going out shoes. I remember going over a high mountain pass in Morocco with my heart in my mouth, not the fact I wished I had a pistachio coloured kitchen mixer for $800 in the Black Friday sales. Hey, I had a fork.

I realise the irony of this when my hip is killing me and preventing me from travelling at all. I don't even know whether I'm going to deal with short drives around Tasmania. That anxiety has had me tidying up the house like you wouldn't believe. I'm not sitting around here dying and holding onto shit that's for sure. That's a big part of minimalism for me. The less I have, the better I feel. I know it's not helping my tendonopathy. But when I'm better, at least I won't be weighted down by the stuff I can't carry.

This post was in response to what Minimalism has taught me for the The Minimalist community.

With Love,

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