The backpack of life

In a lifetime, one can collect a lot of stuff. Some useful, like kitchen supplies, clothes, traveling gear (very useful), diaries that have been written in from cover to cover, pens… (?) But other things, not so useful. When was the last time you used your “retro” walkman? Right. I rest my case.

I have recently discovered that I can now get rid of all of my books, dvds and cds, because nowadays, everything is online (call me slow, I don’t care). I got an ereader, I watch my favorite tv-shows and movies online and I download music. So that’s less stuff to move to my moms house next week.

Seeing as how I plan on living out of a backpack for most of next year (and a part of the year after that, too), what I am hoping for is that when I open up all of the boxes that I am currently packing, I will see all sorts of items that I have not missed one bit in the year we spent apart. The result is that I will be able to throw it out without a second glance (which will bring my mom to tears. Sorry mom).

I feel my best when I am in a room that is neat and minimalistic. Not too much stuff, but just enough to make it feel homey. In the past years I have been living in single student rooms, where there was just enough room to fit all of my stuff, but my room was full – cluttered. And even though I expect to be living a bit bigger when I return home after all of my travels, I still want less things cluttering up the space I have. I want room to move around, dance, do push ups (just kidding). I want room to breathe.

Given the fact that I have so many things, you can imagine the huge crisis I’m facing in these last few weeks of packing my backpack to travel across the globe to another continent for at least half a year before I get back to my mountain of choice.

What on earth do I need to bring?

Because I’m sure as hell not gonna go around dragging a backpack that is the size of my body (or even half of it). Although I will need the extra space for souvenirs, I plan on bringing only the utmost necessities and nothing more. But I catch myself constantly adding things to my packing list, and all I can do is hope – pray – that when I have neatly stacked all of these items onto my bed, I will be able to fit it all into my backpack.

I know this is a cliffhanger. Will she, won’t she? Stay tuned to find out if I manage.