So you know you want to declutter. Or perhaps you know you need to, however, the idea of actually doing it makes you want to crawl back to bed and stay there for, like, actually. So many choices! They make your head.
Don’t be discouraged if right now the task seems overwhelming. To get going, start with what you understand you want to eliminate. If you are not certain about something, that’s OK; save it for later and keep moving. Throw away everything that’s crap and haul out anything you know you need to give away. Tackling what you already know you’re prepared to part with will create momentum. Once you have taken care of everything you understand has to go, concentrate on setting aside what you know, beyond a shadow of a doubtthat you want to continue to.
Emily A. Clark
Throughout my housewide decluttering, everything was in drama. My kids ‘ artwork and writing was sorted. If only gluing was entailed, I was able to associate with it, but when it was private writing, particularly if it stated, “Mama, I love you,” it went to the “keep” box.
Family portraits the children drew were also dear to me. I loved seeing every kid’s vision of that we were throughout the years. In the portraits our bodies might be only large circles, or they might be sophisticated enough to have legs and arms with hands and feet. In some we drifted into the atmosphere, and in other people were lined up neatly: Paul, me, Christopher and Lydia and afterward, when she came, Eden. One thing that was consistent in each single one is that we all wore enormous smiles. In these portraits nothing got us down.
My friend Jane, who was helping me declutter, stated, “Honey, you can not keep every card your kids made you.” I told her I could — everything fit into two moderate Rubbermaid tubs — and that I did … for two months, until I lost all of it at a house fire.
The day of the fire, when Jane called, before she could say a word, I said, “Well, I eventually got rid of these two containers of newspapers you were bitching about!”
In the early days following the fire, I was just so pleased to be alive and to have my whole family safe. That which we had lost was merely stuff, and that I could live with that. Truth be told, I felt a strange relief. Of course I was in shock, and that I hadn’t yet accepted an accounting of what had been missing, but, after a lifetime of tension with my possessions, I mostly felt liberated.
I had spent the better part of a year carefully sorting through my possessions before the flame. I had made thousands of decisions on which could go and what I needed to maintain. It was only after I lost everything that I realized how much of my own immunity in parting with my possessions came from a fear of creating a mistake. Once it was gone, I was no longer afraid.
A Wondrous Thought
Has this ever happened to you? You find something cool. You are not exactly certain what you’re going to do with it, but you love it you know you’ll think of something. Maybe it needs a little bit of work but, well, you’ll reach it. Except you don’t. For years it sits at a corner collecting dust; you may even move it to another house … or two, but you’re likely to do something with it someday. And then you finally face it : You won’t. So you give or give it away and practically another day you see online or in a magazine the very thing, but spruced up or used creatively in a way that would have been ideal if only you hadn’t gotten rid of it! If you’re anything like me, you try to dismiss off it: “Oh, well,” but you don’t really. It comes to mind from time to time and there is that, “Ugh! I must have kept this.”
Only a couple weeks before the fire, I discovered an antique rug in a sale. I debated about buying it but chose to let it all go. Within a few days I knew I had made a mistake: It was beautiful, such a good deal and, now that I was thinking about it, I might have used it in three distinct areas. What had I been thinking? “Oh well,” I stated, and forgot about it, but a few months following the fire, I recalled. “Ugh!” Why didn’t I buy that?” I believed.
simple thoughts
The drums started beating, and the wondrous thought came: “Even though I had, it would have been lost in the flame.” And like this, the regret rolled away. The fire became a line of demarcation; any mistakes I had made in my home were forgiven because all of it was gone. Do you understand how powerful that is?
The stark reality is, as you declutter, you will likely make mistakes. You will almost certainly eliminate things you’ll later regret, but I’m here to tell you it’s going to be all perfect. Don’t let the fear of possible regrets get in the way of a new lightness and freedom.
Aesthetic Outburst
Weeks following the fire, we were staying in a friend’s cottage. One night I snuggled in bed between my girls, tucking them, and it struck me: Not only did I lose all my kids ever made me, however, none of it might be substituted.
My children are growing up. Christopher and Lydia don’t draw me pictures anymore and rarely write cards, and Eden is not as prolific as she was. I put in that huge bed with the girls and sobbed till my head ached. I could not stop, and we all wept together. I was pleased to be alive. I knew the pictures were part of the stuff that didn’t matter as much as the people they represented. I was unutterably grateful that our family was spared, but that I was sad to lose those precious cards and drawings. One didn’t negate the other.
Following a little Lydia, who was 12 at the time, almost 13, stated, “But Mom, these cards and pictures and letters weren’t us. It is like they were a shadow people, like an imprint we left, but they weren’t us. We’re here, and we’re going to be telling you we love you for the rest of our lives.”
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