Thoughts on Clutter

I've said it before, I'll say it again... neatness is not my forte. OK... that's actually a somewhat generous statement. The truth is I'm a total slob.

I come by it naturally though. My mother was the queen of slovenliness. In fact, now that I think about it, "hoarder" might be a more appropriate term for her.

I never really experienced horizontal surfaces in my childhood home. Every table, shelf, counter, and even most of the chairs, beds and floors were covered in a thick layer of clutter. The worst was the basement "rec room".

When I was little, the rec room actually served as a place where recreation took place. There was a fireplace, and a stereo, some old furniture, and even a pool table. I've seen old photos of social gatherings down there with friends and family, and I can even remember playing tag with my brother in what seemed like vast expanses of space.

But then my parents divorced and the pool table disappeared along with pretty much all social interactions. And the room that had once been a place for people to gather and have fun became a repository for things... a seemingly infinite store of things.

By the time I was 8 or 9, it had gotten pretty bad. The floor was long gone and the stuff was about 3 feet deep down there. I didn't really mind this as a kid... heck, I didn't know any different. At one point my friends and I decided to embark on a great adventure and carved a path all the way to the mysterious "back room". We were pretty sure it would hold some sort of pirate's cove of treasure and jewels, but alas, just more junk.

When I was in junior high, I decided that I wanted to re-claim the basement for myself. It was an arduous process, one which provoked a great deal of my mother's rage, but I persevered. I built shelves, I organized, I forced my mother to make purging decisions, and after many months of work I had converted the back room into my bedroom and the rec room became a hang out for me and my friends.

Still, I'm haunted by the memories of that old rec room, and also by the hoarding habits that, despite my best efforts, seem to have winnowed their way into my being. I try... lord knows I try, but it's a constant battle for me.

Sometimes I cruise the minimalist blogs and gaze in disbelief at the photos of spotless homes. Check out these images, or these, or these, or these. Seriously, do people really live this way? Sigh.

Anyhow, I recently decided that the clutter was just getting too much for me to deal with, so I've been purging (again). Oy vay! Did I mention this isn't easy for me? For some reason I always feel some sort of strange fear that I might regret getting rid of something.

Minimalists tend to use a standard of "if your house burnt to the ground, would you replace this item?" Ha! I'm afraid that most of the junk I'm holding onto isn't even close to meeting this criteria.

Let's see... would I replace this item if I had to go buy one for full price? No.
Would I buy it if I found it for a bargain at a thrift store? Um... no.
Would I respond if somebody offered one on FreeCycle? The truth... no.
If I was at a rummage sale and I found it in the free box, would I take it home with me? Actually, not.

So what on earth is going on here?!? I mean, if I wouldn't even take the trouble to carry one home, why on earth am I holding on to it? Most of it is not even stuff that I want, it's just junk that I feel like I "should" keep for some reason. Maybe I could use it some day, wouldn't it be wasteful if I had to go get another one? AAARRRRGGGHHHH!!

Then, I was reading the comments on a post over at Zero Waste Home. A woman was talking about how she was getting older and didn't want to leave it to her children to have to deal with all of her stuff after she was gone. Now, we've all heard the pithy phrases like: we didn't inherit the world from our parents, we're borrowing it from our children... and stuff like that, but somehow, that comment made something click for me, and I had a revelation, an actual epiphany, in fact.

Here it is: I don't really own these things. In fact, nobody really owns anything!

I realize that may fall into the category of the absolutely obvious, but it really hit me like a ton of bricks. This isn't my stuff, I'm simply using it while I'm here. When I'm gone, the stuff will remain, and perhaps somebody else will use it. I know this might sound overly philosophical, but I don't really think it is... I think it's a practical reality, and I'm not sure why it has taken me so long to realize it.

All I'm really doing by holding onto this stuff is providing storage space for the human family. And why do I feel like it's my responsibility to do that? I mean, why can't I simply allow the thrift store, or the library or somebody else to store it? It's not like I couldn't go retrieve it from one of these other places if I really need or want it. I might have to pay a small amount to go get it from one of those places, but it's not like there isn't any cost to me to provide this storage space as it is. I pay every day in real terms (like mortgage payments for the house and money spent on heating/cooling the space) not to mention the emotional cost of time spent looking for things, and just general stress dealing with all of the clutter.

Holy Moly! What an amazing thought! The stuff won't all disappear if I'm not holding onto it... it will simply go live somewhere else, and I can go get it (or something similar) if and when I really need it. The whole world is my storage room... hence, I don't need to try to keep the whole world in my basement! Wow!

So... I've taken one carload off to the thrift store and I have a bunch more to go (like a whole house full). We'll see if I'm able to maintain this attitude, but for the moment it really feels like a breath of fresh air. Whew, what a relief!