This past week, I experienced the joy of living out of my car. Between vacating my sophomore dorm and moving into the apartment I will live in my junior year, there was a week of quasi-homelessness. I packed up everything I could justify keeping/fitting in my 2005 Volkswagon Passat, transforming my typically spacious station wagon into a single-seater that sent Target bags and suitcases lurching forward with every over-enthusiastic stop at a red light. As stressful and transitional as my week of couch-hopping was, it grounded me in several new lessons that I will carry with me when I return to a stable living situation.
1. I own too much stuff.
My car became a Jenga game of belongings, strategically overstuffed but always threatening to topple if I unzipped the wrong duffle. Even after my savage purge of clothing, books, decorations, and knick-knacks in preparation for my transient week, the bags and boxes that filled by backseat would put a desirable Storage Wars unit to shame.
Do I really wear all these clothes/use all these products/need the binder of Freshman year Humanities 101 notes I am still hoarding? I survived the week through a combination of running shoes, makeup removing wipes and travel-size shampoo bottles, seldom needing to crack into one of the suitcases that held my eight little black dresses.
The takeaway? Simplify. As I unload my temporary home, this week’s experience will further encourage a brutal examination of what I need to survive.
2. I am out of touch with how to entertain myself.
I have grown so accustomed to weeks filled with academics and work commitments that, beyond Netflix-ing like my life depends on it, I no longer know what to do when presented with free time. Even then, when left wanting for Wi-Fi, I become borderline catatonic for lack of activity.
This week took me back to my roots of library-summer-reading-programs, and I even went and got a card at the Malibu Public Library. Holding the flimsy card in my hand sent a nerdy thrill through me that reminded me I could rent books I actually wanted to read, rather than the return-date-stamped copy of American Foreign Policy I had all-but thrown at the bookstore worker a week ago.
I went back to the gym, a long-abandoned pursuit, and fumbled my way through every cardio and weight machine in the place, leaving sweaty and slightly confused, but proud (so proud, I rewarded myself with half a pint of Ben and Jerry’s).
The takeaway? Relaxation. As I move into a new apartment, a new semester and a new phase in my life, I will treat myself to little bits of summer whether it’s a New Fiction rental or an hour of yoga.
3. People are good. Scratch that. People are great.
They will open up their homes to you, their couches to you, their showers to you, their kitchens to you. When you are on hour 3 of an extended Starbuck’s residency or are wandering around the grocery store merely for something to do, they will let you sit in their living rooms and steal their Internet and even put up with your cling-on behavior. They will allow you to share their beds and, for brief, interludes, their life.
Contrary to every pessimistic cultural depiction of contemporary individuals as selfish and self-serving, my week of vagrancy demonstrated the potential for generosity and good humor of humanity.
The takeaway? Gratitude. The best quality of people surround me, and maybe I forget that sometimes. Never again.
