Champlain College graduation falls on May 5, 2012. This daunting date is only 5 weeks away, so naturally I’m having thoughts of moving out of my current apartment and into some unknown future location that I will eventually call my home. How have I prepared for this unnerving life event? As I mentioned in my last post, studying abroad helped me gain skills in many areas including the ability and stamina to just get up and leave without a lot of ‘stuff’ weighing me down.

This was all the 'stuff' I packed to live in Amsterdam for four months during my fall 2010 semester.

These days, I walk around my apartment and cringe at all the ‘stuff’ I will need to lug with me when I leave. I completely regressed when I came back to live in Vermont because I found comfort in having many different options for clothes, bedding, furniture, decorations, and entertainment. I have even more ‘stuff’ stored throughout my mother’s house in Massachusetts that I have long forgotten about. What typically happens, year to year, is most of this ‘stuff’ gets stored while I bring the absolute necessities with me to my new location. As years passed, I continued collecting because I became detached to the things I forgot existed in the attic abyss of childhood nostalgia or under my bed full of high school reminiscence. I’ve decided that this is no longer an option. Do I really need all this ‘stuff?’ It’s time to let go. I will no longer be hopping around every four or eight months and it’s my mother’s turn to have a nice house without my clutter getting in her way. Drastic changes will be occurring from this point forward, and it is my decision to actively embrace the change from every direction possible.

This was all the 'stuff' I had coming home from my spring semester 2011 at Champlain College. The back seats were down and the front seat was completely filled up.

The Two Suitcase Project is an initiative that developed after a conversation with my roommate (find her on Twitter: @alyssamneville) about studying abroad. What exactly does this mean? Well, we were both elated by the fact that we could just pick up and go anywhere without a lot of baggage. We felt so free and alive while adventuring abroad, much more so than we do now in our settled, comfortable environment. It’s time to bring those feelings back with the Two Suitcase Project. The challenge: can we fit everything we own in just two suitcases?

Stay tuned for future developments with this project and my journey to simplifying and finding freedom as an independent college graduate.