the art of less... but not nothing.
...a minor act of refusal, mistaken for decluttering.
It was fire season in Los Angeles again.
The sky was stained that strange, apocalyptic orange-gray that makes the sun look like a dying ember. I had just taken my dog out, still in the half-conscious fog that comes from too much sleep or not enough meaning, when my phone rang. It was my friend, she and her husband were being evacuated. The flames were creeping too close. She asked if they could come stay with me.
She was trying to sound calm, polite, grateful, but I heard it. The quiet panic in her voice. The unsaid questions hanging in the smoke: What do we take? What matters most? I told her yes, of course, and hung up the phone. And then, for some reason, I stood there in my kitchen and asked myself: What would I grab?
I scanned my apartment—too much space for one person and a small dog. Too many drawers filled with god-knows-what. A closet with clothes for five different lives I wasn’t living. I knew, in theory, what was “important.” But did I know where any of it was? Could I name it? Find it? Save it?
That was the first time I realized I was living in a museum of emotional artifacts and invisible expectations. A curated gallery of all the versions of me I thought I had to be…cool, accomplished, stylish, well-read, funny, “chill but driven.” The person who bought the right glassware. The right moisturizer. The right narrative.
I didn’t know it then, but that phone call started what would become the most confronting purge of my life. Not just of my stuff, though I did get rid of a truly humiliating number of hoodies, but of something heavier. Something quieter. The need to perform my life instead of live it.
There was a women’s retreat I was supposed to go to.
Panama. Journaling, cacao, uncomfortable eye contact. I’d booked it in a moment of optimism, convinced that clarity required international travel. Then I got sick, the kind of sick that wouldn’t get you sympathy, just a refund.
The dog still went to boarding. The suitcase stayed on the floor. And suddenly, I had nine days and no plan. On day two, I opened a drawer looking for scissors and found a receipt from 2018 and a bracelet I’d never worn. On day three, I started pulling things out of closets. By day five, the apartment was quieter—not empty, but lighter. Fewer ghosts.
I didn’t go to Panama. I didn’t find myself in a jungle. I found myself standing in a pile of things I’d convinced myself I needed.
And then I started letting them go.
At some point on day three I found myself cutting tags off a blouse I’d never worn, just so I could throw it out without feeling wasteful.
That was the logic I was working with.
The living room looked ransacked, but only by me, and only because I didn’t know where else to put the feeling. There were bags open, piles half-sorted, books I’d donated once and then taken back. A pair of heels I kept in case I ever needed to look interesting at a dinner party I didn’t want to attend.
No playlist. No candle. Just me, in a slept-in sweatshirt, having a private unravel I was calling ‘decluttering.’
I moved to the bathroom without finishing the living room. Threw out a mask I didn’t trust, kept a heating pad I forgot I owned. Sprayed a perfume sample. Regretted it instantly.
I didn’t know what I was trying to make room for. But I kept going.
At some point, there were fifteen bags by the door. A few were threatening to tip over but I refused to fix them. If the sweaters wanted to escape, they could.
The drawers were empty. The closet looked like it had been robbed, tastefully. I opened the pantry just to see if anything would fall on me. Nothing did.
I wasn’t done, exactly. But there was nothing left to argue with.
The problem with getting rid of everything is that nothing’s left to blame.
There were no drawers to rearrange. No closets to clean out. No sudden need to alphabetize my spice rack. Just time. Just the thoughts that had been pacing at the edges and now had room to come in and start making suggestions.
Most of them were unhelpful.
I didn’t miss the stuff. I missed the distraction. I missed the excuses—for not writing, for not calling, for not figuring out what I actually wanted instead of reacting to what other people wanted first.
Without the mess, I had to sit in the actual reasons. Which, for the record, are much harder to put in a donation bag. There was nothing left to fuss over. Which sounds peaceful, but mostly felt like being trapped with myself at full volume.
When you clear the space, you don’t get peace.
You get everything you’ve been keeping just far enough away with errands, text threads, online carts, and other people’s opinions.
Comparison walks in first. Ambition right behind it, the kind that isn’t hungry anymore, just mean. Regret makes itself at home. Shame starts folding your laundry. Even the fantasy version of you shows up—the one with restraint, and discipline, and taste—just to comment on the lighting and leave.
This is the part no one likes to mention.
That without the chaos, there’s nothing left to manage.
It’s not minimalism. Minimalists tend to have stronger opinions about drawer organizers.
It’s not aesthetic. There’s no neutral palette. No before-and-after. No ritual.
It’s just the decision, made once and remade constantly, to remove anything that makes life heavier than it needs to be.
At first it was stuff. But that was the easy part. After that, it was everything else: the fake plans, the just-in-case friendships, the mental tabs left open for conversations I wasn’t having.
I started choosing what stayed based on one question: Is this essential, or is it just familiar?
Most things, it turns out, were the latter.
And what was left—what I actually used, wanted, needed, trusted—became the architecture. My apartment. My calendar. My head.
No part of this felt revelatory. It just felt clean. There was no chaos to buffer me from indecision. No distractions to hide behind. I stopped multitasking. I stopped saying maybe. I stopped entertaining things I’d already decided against just because I didn’t want to be rude.
Of course, not everything went. I kept the letter. The perfume I never wear but still smell occasionally when I’m avoiding a deadline. Objects with weight, not clutter, the kind you remember packing first when the fire comes close… all of it folded into a vintage suitcase, just in case it ever came to that.
It’s not a lifestyle. That would imply some effort to make it look good.
It was a refusal. To keep showing up for things that exhausted me. To answer questions I’d already answered. To explain choices to people who only asked so they could argue.
At a certain point, you realize: the performance takes more out of you than the life ever did.
There’s no great lesson here. Just that when you subtract everything that doesn’t matter, you’re left with the few things that do.
And, somewhat annoyingly, it turns out that’s enough.
I used to think I needed to be impressive.
Not successful exactly… impressive.
The performance was subtle. It always is. Not fake, just calibrated. Outfits that implied ease. Work that implied passion. A life arranged like a good photograph: enough chaos to be relatable, enough curation to be admired.
Cool is a full-time job. And I was exhausted.
And I wasn’t even cool.
That’s what no one tells you: half of what we carry is just backup, for the version of ourselves we think might be required. The bag you keep in case you need to be fun. The jacket for the dinner you don’t want to go to. The personality you pack when you’re not sure yours is enough.
Letting it go wasn’t cathartic. It was practical. And late. And quiet.
I didn’t go to Panama.
Instead I spent nine days not trying to be someone. No transformation, no ritual. Just fewer things. Fewer lies. Objects. Piles. And eventually, a kind of clarity that didn’t explain itself.
And if it all went tomorrow?
The dog.
The suitcase.
And the version of myself that doesn’t owe anyone an explanation.
The rest, I’ve left once. I know how to do it again.
File Under: Everything Must Go, Especially Me.
The Ash Files—Where life’s unexpected moments get filed away—sometimes neatly, sometimes under “figure it out later.” From writer/creator ASH, expect weekly musings, honest stories, and a reminder that no one has life entirely figured out [least of all me].✨
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Every time you write, i think it’s the best thing I’ve read.
"Living in a museum of emotional artifacts." That slammed into me like Mack truck.