Last night, I had a particularly vivid waking dream in which I was on a ferry with every single RVer I know both virtually and offline. We were on the passenger deck and our rigs were below. The ferry was sinking slowly. Our rigs were goners.

I floated amongst the group listening to everyone’s reactions. Most of the part-timers were fairly nonchalant about the whole thing since they had insurance. The full-timers, one in particular, were hysterical that their entire lives were about to disappear into a watery abyss, yelling at the part-timers that they just didn’t understand what our rigs mean to us.

It was fascinating.

I stayed out of it until we were given permission to go down to our rigs one last time for about 10 minutes and take what we could carry only.

I go through that exercise in my mind frequently and it was interesting to actually do it.

I put together the cat carriers, wrangled the babies in them, and put the phone, iPad and iPod in my purse with their cables. I still had five minutes left, so I grabbed a backpack and put my computer, chargers, and hard drives in it, cushioned with some clothes. I made sure to switch to practical shoes, added a layer, wrapped a scarf around my neck, heaved the backpack on, put the purse strap around my shoulders,  grabbed a carrier in each hand, and walked out of my beloved home forever.

I awoke wondering yet again about how much ‘stuff’ I really need. Yes, five years later, I’m still Sorting It Out.

Compared to a lot of people, I’m practically a minimalist (but I would never consider myself one!) and compared to others, I’m a hoarder. These comparisons are, of course, pointless, but do reveal that since I am still struggling with my possessions, my decluttering journey is not over.

Right now, I have the perfect amount of stuff to fill this RV in such a way that all the storage space is utilized, but it is not all overflowing and everything is easily reached. I’m organized!

I’ve reached the stage of decluttering where the exercise seems almost pointless. I use everything I own, I have space to store everything I own, I can easily access everything I own, and I know where everything I own is. Why do I still get the urge to keep downsizing?

This answer is that the life I’m currently living won’t be my last. Even before I started RVing, I knew what the next stage would be, and that would be an extremely minimalist existence traveling around the world with just a bag. The idea of being free of the endless cycle of domesticity will be a reward after a long journey of mostly conventional living.

Right now, my cats require me to have a stable home base. It makes sense that, in the twilight of their years, I continue to indulge my nesting instincts and get the idea of ‘home’ right for once so that I can move on and follow other dreams later. But I can’t lose sight of the vision I have for my post-RVing years.

So I keep decluttering, simplifying, reducing. When the day comes that I find myself alone, I won’t need to waste time getting ready for the next phase of my life.

But there’s no need to rush there. I’m enjoying this life, cluttered as is it, too much.