Stuff

Today, Cindy shares how feels overwhelmed by all the "stuff" she's accumulated over the years. As she is preparing to move, she realizes it's time to let go of possessions she has been holding on to for too long. Watch the video to hear how Cindy comes to terms with getting rid of some of her "stuff."

Video Transcript:

Hello ladies. It's "Saturday with Cindy." Thank you so much for your patience waiting for me for all these months to get through my travels, my nuptials, the holidays, and I hope you enjoyed the last two Saturdays With Cindy. My interview with Oceana and the fashion revolution, and my interview with Lisa Fallon Mindel talking about holistic health. They are both good friends of mine, and we had always wanted to get together and do it. And I just needed a little help from my friends to get my engines rolling again and get back in the groove.

So, welcome to all of you who are here for the first time. You may decide you're not interested in sitting and listening to my ramblings. That's fine. I do this for fun. I do it for free, and I have a lot of fans and a lot of customers that really enjoy it. So, best to take a look at the archives. Maybe pick some subjects you like. Sometimes they're more personal. Sometimes they're more universal.

So today, my subject is "Belongings, Stuff, Moving, Packing," because that's what I'm doing. Some of you have seen my house tour, my lovely house, which I have loved and adored for 10 years, and it's time to let it go. It's a lot to keep up, and there are just a couple of us living here. So, it's time to pass it on, to pass the wand to somebody else who's going to love it and appreciate it as much as we have. So, we are going to go on a new adventure. We're going to stay light and flexible. 

We're going to spend some time in California. We're going to visit kids in Florida, and Georgia, and back here in New York. So, that's what I'm up to. Well, I live in a five-bedroom house. Imagine. When I first moved in, I got a bed for each bedroom. Well then, next to the bed you need a table. Then you need a lamp, and this and that and the other thing. And before you know it, this house is packed from top to bottom.

And I'm pretty good at keeping the closets cleaned out. I'm not at all a hoarder. I'm the other way, a little bit more of a minimalist. I keep things very organized and tidy. But I tell you, I am overwhelmed. So, I'm hanging onto those things I just cannot let go of. I'm going to put them in storage, and I'm going to travel as light as possible. We will have a home base in California for a while. So belongings, how do you let go of them?

How many pairs of glasses do I own? Which ones do I wear every day? My thought is, wear the glasses and wear the clothes that I wear every week, every day. The stuff that I just really consider mine. If somebody saw it, you know, sitting on a chair that knew me well, they'd go, "Oh, that's Cindy's." So, I am learning to let go of the things I've collected that I thought one day I might use. One of my little tricks is noticing what I bring along when I travel for a week. What do I bring?

So, if I'm in a hotel, I look at what's hanging in the closet, what's in the drawers, what's in my bag, and I think, "Hmm, if I can use that for a week, I can probably just function with that much all the time." Now, that might be a little bit extreme. There is a lot of fun in having a lot of choices. But then it hits a tipping point where it's just too much. It's hard to get through it all. It's, like, walking into a huge department store to pick out one outfit, rather than into a small boutique. It's a lot easier if you don't have such a wide choice. So, I guess it's about balance. It's about moderation, which can be applied to exercise, to eating, to stuff. Anyway, so that's what I'm thinking about. Do you have any pointers on that? What do you do?

When you've had to move, what do you bring? What do you leave? If you've moved three times, and you haven't opened that box up in three moves, throw it away and don't even look at it. Probably the most belongings I have, that I will never get rid of, are my photographs. I have 70 years worth of photographs from 10 years before I was born, all the way to now.

And I have more photographs than the average person because my dad was a photographer. My husband of 10 years was a photographer. My next relationship of 10 years was a photographer. My next relationship of 5 years was a photographer. And then, of course, I started shooting pictures, and I've been around photography my whole life as a makeup artist, then as a model, and we certainly use a lot of photographs with BOOM.

So, imagine the boxes, the bags, the albums. But I could never get rid of those. All those years I passed storage lockers thinking, "Why do people put their stuff in those? They're not using it. It's not functioning. It's not alive. It's just energy caught in a storage locker." Now, I'm joining the club. Love to hear your stories, so post your points of view on that.

I've posted a link below to a comedy routine by George Carlin, which you may be familiar with, and it's all about stuff. It's really funny. It's worth watching. Check it out. I also wanted to mention that I'm definitely going to do a "Saturday With Cindy" all about my experience with my good friend Rivka Grubb the wardrobe stylist. And I will tell you what she advised me, and you might be able to glean some things out of that for yourself. So, stay tuned. That's coming soon. You guys are great. So long. I'll be back maybe next Saturday.