As spring approaches, and as I delve into my happiness project, I have been experiencing the strong urge to declutter my life. Physically, mentally, and emotionally. What an overwhelming task. I have lived in my home for 5 years now. It's the longest I have ever lived in one place in my entire life. I love that fact. But what I have learned is that being stationary enables me to collect more "stuff". Piles of old mail have hidden themselves away on shelves, in nooks, and crannies. Notes from friends, lovers, and nemeses stored away because I wanted to keep them for one reason or another. The good ones were to remind me of the happiness, warmth and love. The negative ones were most likely being saved for a court date. Knick knacks, copious amounts of art work, and other kidlet stuff are abound. Way too many shoes. Clothes that have been on the hanger so long they literally have collected dust. More yarn that I will ever need. Camping gear. And all of this, just in my bedroom closet. It's ridiculous. I spent three hours in there today. Three garbage bags of recycling, two of clothes, one of paper needing to be shredded and then recycled, one giant one of craft supplies, and two of random knick knacks. It's organized. It's spacious. It's awesome. As I dropped off the donations and dumped the recycling, I felt so light and airy that I wanted to dance.
I realized something today. I started out with the intention of clearing my physical clutter because at first glance that would be the easiest to tackle. However, I noticed that most of my physical clutter is tied to me emotionally in some way. It makes perfect sense, but it was an AHA moment for me. Letting it all go was such a relief, yet also a very emotional experience for me. Reading through letters I was reminded how wonderful the people in my life are, and how some of those connections have disappeared. Going through clothes and jewelry I forgot I even owned I was reminded of occasions in which they were worn. Some good, some bad. The most difficult was the journal of dealings and goings on between my childs father and I right after I left. Reading the things he did or said put me right there all over again. Being able to look at all of these experiences, and then let them go, or put them away, was so freeing!
I have always been a sentimental person. I have a piece of yarn that was part of a worship service at a youth con where I met my two best friends at when I was 15. I have stupid overwhelming stacks of pictures from all different parts of my life. But today I noticed that while it's nice to be able to look back at theses things, it weighs me down more than I'd like. Maybe I have romaticized parts of my past, and that interferes with my present because nothing now is as good as what I created in my mind as 'then'. Also, knowing that there were piles of old bills, invoices, pay stubs was so depressing. Seeing them was like adding one more weight to my shoulders. That constant reminders of the money I owe, the money I don't have, the money I wasn't smart with. I don't need that hanging over my day. Throwing out the paper part of those lessons doesn't mean I will have learned less from my experiences in the past. I still have that in me.
Also, seeing so much evidence of my work and my progress makes me feel like a bad ass!
4 comments:
Couldn't agree more on the need to do this. I cleared letters, old gifts, cards, mix cds and more just this weekend.
Kind of the echo from the purging of this summer when I got rid of several thousand books, nine garbage bags of clothes and close to a thousand cds.
There was a psychic lift from clearing those things, but nothing like what I felt in taking the picture of my ex-wife out of the frame that said "my lady love" beneath it. Now it's moved to the friend album (okay, shoebox) where it belongs rather than in a box of stuff I've been carting around for five years.
Mix CDs, cards and love notes likewise found their way out and more than anything it started to make space for reimagining what the relationships they had come from could now mean, unencumbered by the physical legacy of what they had meant.
There were certainly some I was sad to see go, but many that I knew I just needed to let go of because they'd always be about things that weren't meant to be.
Congratulations on your hard work!
This post was really inspiring! I've been slowly picking one area of our house and giving it a thorough decluttering and cleaning. It's a pain and a huge amount of work but it is really freeing. I feel so much better afterward. I have boxes of old letters, journals, and whatnot that have traveled with me (in some cases unopened) from Chicago, to Phoenix, to Seattle. Are these things really something I need if they just sit in a box collecting dust? Once I start looking at all of it, it becomes so hard to let go of some of it. My mom saved a huge amount of art work and school awards and things for me. In some ways this was really sweet and in other ways it feels like a huge burden. Now I have look through it and toss out the dot matrix printed certificates for spelling circa 1987.
Second to all the sentimental stuff for me is all the craft stuff. It's become ridiculous. I'm getting together a box of partially used skeins of yarn and giving it to our DRE to use for church school. I've been looking at partially knit sweaters and deciding finish it or rip it and use the yarn for something else?
It's been pretty fun to find new owners for some of this stuff too. I gave a huge pile of paper to a girl in my youth group who is into card making lately. She was so excited. It makes me happy to see it put to use rather than in a box of craft supplies in the back of a closet.
Thanks for the encouragement you two! It's nice to know that there are people out there who relate. I was telling someone about this the other day and about how much stuff I have gotten rid of and how much more I would like to get rid of and they thought I was crazy. "Why would anyone want to give away all their stuff???"
But it feels so great!
Clearing out the crafty stuff is what sisters with their own etsy shops of upcycled stuff are for. Of course I invariably get back something super cool as a thank you (which I will of course someday also have to pass on). The cycle never ends...
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