“Our life is frittered away by detail. An honest man has hardly need to count more than his ten fingers, or in extreme cases he may add his ten toes, and lump the rest. Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity!” - Henry David Thoreau, Walden.

For as many times as I’ve tried to simplify, I do believe I might just get it right this time. The reason? Well, I’ve finally figured out that setting out to simplify a life is anything but simple. It’s actually nothing short of emotional untangling, but as long as we’re prepared for this by having both ample time and patience with ourselves, the process can safely begin.

I mean honestly, how taxing is it deciding which old baby clothes to give away, or which trinkets to toss from the junk drawer come spring cleaning Saturday? It’s a chore because these are more than just unnecessary extras in our lives as Thoreau seems to suggest; we’ve after all perhaps assigned some part of ourselves to these things, and ironically, this is exactly why his theory works in the end - in getting rid of our junk, we get rid of our “junk”. We just need to sort carefully, and this, I don’t believe, is stressed nearly enough in his ‘come-be-free campaign.’

I’m unfortunately perfect proof of this, having made the mistake of not seeing the proverbial forest through the trees. Remembering Walden, I thought it would be easy to simplify and went through emptying closets, filling bags for Goodwill and driving to drop them off. For an immediate while I felt great, refreshed, renewed; finally, tabula rasa, I thought. But since all the dust has settled, here and there I find myself a little sad, discouraged, and resentful. Why? Because in hindsight maybe I was in too great a hurry to trim these metaphoric frays.

Maybe I didn’t make proper peace before throwing away certain things, and I speculate this because now I find I miss my comfortable old, black sweatshirt that, although faded and a mess, was perfect to wear when I was sick because it was so soft. I have other soft things, but for some reason or another I’d become attached to that one in particular. Maybe out of habit, or some Pavlovian association since I’d always worn it while sick, but whatever the case, I now feel a bit of regret and self-loathing in addition to the fever and coughing upon remembering my rash decision to toss it out.

I suspect I didn’t make peace with anything before I said my goodbyes. In fact I don’t think I said any goodbyes at all to some of the old baby clothes and trinkets of myself. I think I just tossed them out and declared them gone and voila there I was anew. Well that, in hindsight, seems about as fresh a start as a clean cover over the same soiled sheets, and I’m finding it’s no wonder that unlike my sweatshirt, those old pieces of myself are not somewhere disintegrating in a landfill far, far away. They’re still very much with me to a degree, and it’s not until I pick them up and evaluate each and every one that I’ll really be able to let them go.

I guess in the end it doesn’t matter what we believe we’ve thrown out, unless we’ve made our peace it stays with us in a way. I’m sure I’ll probably carry that sweatshirt with me, lamenting for some time to come, and who knows, maybe one flu-ridden day years from now I’ll stop kicking myself for it being gone. I’ll eventually get over it and move on, having thoroughly learned that we are in essence not found within the weavings of simply our current things and experiences, but also within those making up the combined lump sum of all we have been.