i love my stuff. i mean, i LOVE my stuff. i can spend hours sorting through greeting cards (i have lots of blank ones, i sort of collect them, and then i don't have to go out and buy a card every time i want to write one), stationery, jewelry, toiletries...and of course, emails and online photos. (do those count? i guess they do clutter my computer, if not my house.) so the prospect of getting rid of stuff is often not so exciting to me. i mean, i panic when i misplace a receipt i need. i like to know my stuff is there if i need it. i'm sure it's at least in part a control thing. the irony being, of course, that i have so much stuff that it's hard to keep track of all of it. i keep reading that organized spaces create a sense of calm. while i believe this (and the pictures, of which i have many, really are soothing) whenever i imagine getting rid of something i love, or rather, realizing too late i have gotten rid of something i now want, i panic. i do not get calm. i get anxious. huh. so imagine my surprise when i started getting excited about getting rid of some stuff.
for a long time, actually, i've been trying to "de-clutter" my life. i know, join the club. certainly in terms of material things, although i have a feeling this might begin to clear my head a bit as well. recently, a few friends have started blogs, and i've really been enjoying reading them. (plus one of these same friends has also taken a distinct interest in my clutter - and the need to thin it out!) it's become an ongoing theme and project in my life - one i suspect i don't ever complete, at least in part, because i enjoy the process of *trying* to do it, and sometimes even find it therapeutic and reflective to go through all of the objects that have gained importance in my life. so i don't quite want it to be done. and i get bogged down by the process of decluttering, which becomes more cluttering in itself - does that make any sense? in addition, it often seems as though the objects hold meaning on their own. so i struggle with throwing away the object - am i throwing away the sentiment behind it?
i also LOVE taking pictures and documenting stuff in general (journals, datebooks, photo albums, even receipts) - which of course adds to the clutter. (in grad school for educational theatre, a group of close friends coined names for each other - and i was, and remain, the historian. i love this title and try to live up to it.) do you see where this is going? and where these two hobbies/habits might intersect? does shutterbug = clutterbug?
anyway, since having a beautiful baby boy 9 months ago, i have been trying even more fervently to get rid of some stuff and streamline our lives, and for a variety of reasons - time, exhaustion, lack of organization and decisiveness, more stuff coming into the house, more sentimentality stemming at least in part, no doubt, from hormones - have been even less successful than before. the fact that my beloved grandmother ("savta lea") passed away a few months ago, herself a fabulous clutterbug with really wonderful, extravagant, and, i cannot stress this enough, *abundant* amounts of stuff, means both that i have inherited even more stuff (and brought some of it back from israel, with some more of it arriving in boxes soon. more on this later) and that i have become even more emotional. about her stuff specifically, and my stuff in general. so you see, it seems like the perfect storm. result: crap everywhere.
going through savta's stuff in israel was eye-opening to me, for 2 reasons. first, i tried to be careful only to take things of hers that i really wanted, because i knew it would be hard for me to get rid of things that belonged to her later, even if i didn't really want them. (i still took way too much, but less than i would have a few years ago.) second, this process made me realize that getting rid of stuff i no longer needed would make room for the stuff that was really important to me now. (so the broken chicken mug from the dollar store, beloved or not, did not need to keep company with savta's gorgeous patent leather bag. or even her fading, but amazing, chicken-shaped soft-boiled egg cups.)
the other day, i was thinking about some stuff i wanted to get rid of, and thought it might be fun to take pictures of it, write a little caption, and in this way honor the possession before chucking it. (i did this years ago when my parents finally sold my childhood home and i had to part with such treasures as my beloved naf-naf jumpsuit and giant purple "think big" crayon. these photos may land here at some point if my brothers, who are in the photos, allow it.) while it would cause computer, or cyber, clutter, at least that cracked mug wouldn't sit on my desk anymore. then i realized - a blog might be a way to "memorialize" the stuff, and keep it in a way, honoring at least the important sentiments of the things without keeping everything around.
anyway, i probably shouldn't document every single thing i throw away/donate/sell. i have to figure out how much stuff to post about here, so that this blog doesn't become, well, cluttered. not sure how to strike that balance, but i guess it's worth a shot. wish me luck! there is always the concern that reading this blog will create more clutter in your life...so feel free to purge! but if you feel like joining me for part or all of this journey - i'll love sharing it with you. as long as you don't make fun. ok, but just a little.
ps - so here's the chicken mug. i bought it at the dollar store across the street from my parents' gallery. when my relatives were visiting from israel a few years ago, they thought this dollar store was the best thing ever (it really is a pretty good dollar store!) and they found these adorable mugs, with chickens and sheep and cows on them. so they bought some. at the time, i decided i wasn't going to shlep them back home with me, so i passed. but i thought about them, and when i went to israel and used my cousin's mugs, i was sad i hadn't gotten any. a few times that year when i visited my parents at work, i went across the street to the dollar store to look for them (yes, seriously) but they were gone. until one day, maybe a year later, they appeared again! i was so excited - i bought 2 chicken ones and 2 sheep ones. they're my favorite coffee mugs and i use them almost daily. when one cracked down the side, i didn't want to throw it away, so i put it on my desk to put pens in. until a few days ago, when i decided it was time to let the chicken go. it still makes me a little sad. sigh. it's gonna be a long road.
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