Travelling light

Someone said once that it is a rare traveller whose luggage gets bigger the more often he travels.
It`s something I can relate to, absolutely. Especially since we have been taking care of DMIL, which involves frequent visits and, for me, frequent journeys there and back by train because we have only one car. 
By now, the takealong luggage  for a weekend visit has, for me, shrunk to a single backpack, plus maybe a rather smallish netbook bag if I need to take a change of shoes, too.
So what´s in the backpack?
Assuming I´ll return the day after the next day and it´s summer, two changes of underwear and stockings, a t-shirt doing double duty as a nightie, two blouses or two shirts, my running pants, a running top, my running shoes unless I just wear them, my netbook, my camera, my toiletries (toothbrush, small packages of toothpaste, shower gel, deodorant and shampoo, plus any , er, female necessities), my mp3-player, my mobile HD plus the cables for the electronics.
Everything else I carry on my body, after all, I do not start my journey unclothed. I take one pair of shoes (flats or sneakers), one pair of pants, and a coat, plus my beloved leather vest that holds things like phone, keys, wallet and tickets in its roomy interior pockets.
The interesting part is how liberating this is. I used to be one of those snail travellers - you know, who´d  travel with their complete household on their backs if they could but take it along. I usually carried, there and back, as the Hobbit would put it, several complete outfits, with pants, shoes, and jackets, plus half the contents of my cosmetics box, and at least several fat pocket books to read on the way. Most of it, I´d carry back two days later unused. And I´d pay for it by being hampered when having to change trains, ending up, more often than not, with a hurting back.
Nowadays, I throw my minimal equipment into my backpack, get dressed in my "travel" wardrobe, and off I am, without having to look for things like elevators to the trains (the more packed you are, the more likely they are out of order) or luggage carts.
The interesting part is that I have never, ever, missed a single thing I did not take along, meaning that I did get along with the few things I did take along.
It actually does make me think.
How many things do I own, and take along in my life, that do not add any value to my life, but extract a price in space, time, money or energy?
I am not ready yet to downsize to some extremely low number of things, like a hundred or so, but this should really be encouraging me to, at least, get rid of some of that extra stuff.
Maybe I´ll be feeling lighter then.


Julia