I have not leased a mini storage space since I had a concept. I did it because I lacked space and got bored with faking that I had not. Click here for helpful resources!
Life in Hong Kong is synonymous with the familiarity with a tight area. You adjust. Stuff, objects, pile on top, push objects, stuff, into corners, say to yourself, it is alright. Unless it happens to be one day. I reached that stage when I was unable to open a drawer, and it had to move something before it could do so.
Hence I rented a mini storage without thinking over it.
Initially, it did not seem to be necessary. I did not enjoy spending every month having to travel around with the intention of storing my own things. I kept on asking it during the first week. Then I started clearing out of my flat, and something seemed to move immediately.
That space was not only larger. It felt calmer.
I started with the obvious ones, winter clothes, bedding, a suitcase which had gone months without being touched. Then I became a little more frank. Stale boxes, I last opened them back when I was transferred last time. Pieces of small furniture that were not actually fitting that I had kept.
This is when the unit started filling at a faster rate than expected.
Even a mini storage in Hong Kong does not have to be big in order to count. Mine wasn’t. However, it left me some in my apartment that I could still move around my place of residence without having to turn my path each time. And that was what changed the every-day atmosphere of the place.
It further shocked me that it had affected my habits.
I never kept little things in reserve. Not because I had woken up minimalist, but I had a buffer. It did not necessarily have to be in my living room in case something was not urgent at that moment. It would not have to disappear and be disposed of.
It has a peculiar relief in it.
The other lesson I learned was that I utilized my home differently. The table left further unclear. At the end of the day, the sofa was not cluttered with various things. There was less effort in cleaning and so I should have done it more frequently as opposed to procrastinating.
The storage unit in itself was routine. Not in a way of nagging. More like a reserve that I came to now and then. I would leave it, steal something and depart. Nobody is in a hurry or under pressure.
And this is what I had not imagined–I had forgotten all but the main part of what I had packed up.
Not everything. The slightest part to understand how little of it I needed to know about me. The turn back was intentional when I went back because I was seeking something very specific and not picking rubbish.
And the transformation stays with you.
It did not make my life in Hong Kong a different one when I started using a mini storage unit. It changed the flow of my blood in my room, my manipulation of the objects that surrounded me and the level of mental noise that was generated by the sheer existence of excessively many objects in my room.