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Has Achieved Nirvana |
Hit me on a number of levels. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/0...leaning-clutter.html
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Jodi| Foregoing Practicing to Post Minor Deity  |
This is why we have finally started decluttering now. China set gone, reams of old files gone, and now sorting through all the books. A lot of stuff, but a little every day or so…
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Minor Deity |
Yep. We have one child and do not want her to have to wade through mountains of the detritus of life.
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Has Achieved Nirvana |
Wow. Powerful letters. Thanks for posting the link, jodi. I've had to go through a bunch of estates. Still going through the last items that belonged to my parents; Dad died in 1988 and Mom in 2019. Found love letters from my Dad to Mom that she didn't even know were still around. They were stored in a candy box that had been at my grandparents' house and that eventually ended up at my hoarder uncle's condo. I found them in 2004 when he had a stroke and ended up in memory care. I haven't read them. Somehow it seemed like intruding into their world. Throwing out other people's photographs is hard. Often you don't even know who the people in the photos are, but throwing the pictures away feels a little like throwing away a life. Like RP, we are getting rid of our own stuff a little at a time. No family to speak of. It'll end up in a dumpster if we don't deal with it. I keep telling myself it's just stuff. But it definitely can stir up a lot of feelings.
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| Has Achieved Nirvana |
As an only child, I thank you for recognizing this and bestowing that gift upon your daughter.
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Has Achieved Nirvana |
Moving our stuff ended up costing $1.53/pound. Once we figured that out it was very easy to get rid of stuff.
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| Minor Deity |
It's just an anchor. if you haven't used it in two years, by and large you never will.
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Has Achieved Nirvana |
There are some things you keep just because you want to keep them. Maybe it's a form of hoarding ... maybe there's some sentimental value. Mary Anna and I each keep way more stuff than we should. In her case, at least I know that her kids will likely want some of it (if they can deal with the transportation and the storage). My kids, not so much. It's funny how I'm dealing with both ends of this at once. My mother's house is a hoarder's paradise, and she has often said (and not entirely with humor), "I know you're just going to back up a dump truck and be done with all of it." But, even when she was healthy, she couldn't bear to deal with any of it. So I'll have to. Health permitting, I'd rather not do that to my kids. | |||
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| Has Achieved Nirvana |
That’s mostly true, although I can say there are any number of tools I didn’t use for years that I’m using now that I’m retired. Ditto cold weather clothes, although a lot if it disintegrated when I tried to use it.
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Has Achieved Nirvana |
My parents said they had discarded all their carp.  My brother got the house. "whew"  Real estate in that area took a dive after the major employer shut down. The area is rural and declining. I had the few items I wanted. My brother invited his kids and my sister's to take what they wanted. Then he hired a company to get the rest of the carp out. Nice looking brick home, hardwood, landscaped, updated appliances, a/c and heat 4500 square feet sold at $160,000.
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| Has Achieved Nirvana |
"Death cleaning" needs a new name
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| Has Achieved Nirvana |
It took me all day (messing with it in between doing other necessary things) just to do one freaking drawer (of mine) yesterday. I am hopeless.
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| Has Achieved Nirvana |
Life cleaning?
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| Has Achieved Nirvana |
Found my old diary in a drawer and I continue to clean, wrote this as an after the fact submission to the link in my original post. I am not ready to toss the diary. Yet.  I am cleaning and decluttering, something I always feel the need to do, especially after coming home from visiting family. I lost my Dad in March. I just came back from staying with my mom while her husband had to be away (Mom and Dad divorced when I was 12). My parents, especially my mom, are savers of all things, and I'm trying to save my kids some of the difficulties of dealing with "stuff" after I am gone. I managed only one drawer yesterday. This was in the bottom of the one I cleared out today, my Diary, started in 1969, and restarted numerous times, and mostly filled with teenage angst (omg, so much angst) and really bad poetry. So bad. Anyway, as I was flipping through it, a note fell out from my mom, one she had written and taped to my bedroom door after my last piano recital senior year in high school - where my stage fright took over and my hands shook so badly through the entire Gershwin prelude. She was also a pianist (and an artist), and understood everything I was feeling - it was a note filled with love and support, and it made me cry all over again. Not because of the stage fright, but because when I was with her last week, she kept forgetting who I was. I am losing her, as her memories are being scrambled and lost and that makes me so very sad.
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| knitterati Beatification Candidate  |
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