Too. Much. Stuff!

I know I'm not alone, but I suffer from that modern-day disease of owning too much Stuff.  We have been indoctrinated from an early age (I'm in that first generation of tv watchers and those commercials really did their job on me) to buy, buy, buy.  We get stuffed with Stuff.  And usually, it sits in closets, drawers, corners, cupboards.  Feng Shui belief is that this Stuff affects our chi - our life energy.  Think of it as your energy being sucked away because you have all this Stuff weighing you down.  Even when we don't think about it, we know it is there, lurking in the background.  We can't easily find something we need.  We may even buy more than one of the same thing, because we have so much Stuff that we lose track of what we already own. Some people lose the ability to feel comfortable in their own home, and hesitate to entertain others because of the mess and confusion that Stuff creates.

Photo by Wikimedia Commons User Tomwsulcer

On the spectrum of minimalist to hoarder, I'd say I fall somewhere in the middle, but it is bad enough that after a lifetime of accumulating Stuff, I need some serious effort in order to declutter.  Being an introspective gal, I needed to think about the psychology of the mess before I could actually make a change.  So I did some research.  I found out there are basically two reasons why people hang on to their Stuff.

1)  "You might need this someday."  This goes hand-in-hand with being taught not to waste, or a fear (probably laid in by depression-born parents) that you will waste money or time if you dispose of Stuff.  This can get extreme -- for example, saving too many plastic bags, bottles, etc.,, with the thought that you will recycle by reusing.  Saving old magazines because someday you are going to do something with those articles that appealed to you.  That clutter can build up quickly!  Or you might have Stuff you know is worth money, but you're not sure who to pass it on to, or how to do that.  So it sits there, waiting.

2)  "Aww, I loved it when..."  This is the emotional attachment to our Stuff.  That baby doll you had when you were a child, the first cookbook you ever used, newborn clothes from baby days, etc.  We tend to get confused and think the object that invokes the memory is the same as the memory.  I think this is a very common and very human reaction.  When my mom died, I hung out with her handkerchiefs and coat for a while because they smelled like her.  Yes, I still have them even though they don't smell like her anymore.  When my grandparents died, I dumped a lot of what they owned into my basement.  The fact that I haven't used it/looked through it in 20+ years hasn't mattered as long as the Stuff was there, ready to rekindle my memories.  Do I really need Grandpa's electric bills from World War II?  The fact that I am a person interested in historical eras complicates this emotional connection. 

So, what to do?  Well, I decided to start slowly. When I made this decision, I started by bringing a couple of boxes out of our "cubby" area upstairs. Wow.  I found Saddam Hussein playing cards, don't know where those came from.  Those baby dolls I mentioned above, from when I was 8.  A collection of Burger King toys --  I remember saying, those will be worth something someday...Nope.  Not unless you consider them selling for a couple of dollars on EBay "worth something."  How much has the space they took up for 20+ years cost?  The only problem was, that once I cleaned out those couple of boxes, the declutter thing took back burner again and I didn't do much else.

As often happens in my life, when I have one of those lightbulb moments, the universe does something to make it have a bigger impact.  You know, so I don't forget and fall back into not caring, or so that I get prodded to move a bit faster through the process.  This moment came for me on Memorial Day.  My baker's rack in the kitchen was crammed-full of Stuff like beans, rice, grains, cookbooks, appliances (KitchenAid mixer, yogurt maker) and various other treasures like stickers and coloring book/crayons for my grandson. By crammed, I mean every square corner of space built up 7 feet high.  A pinnacle of master design, but not very safe.  But I didn't notice because I'm used to Stuff.  On Memorial Day, the family was over for dinner and they were all crowded around the table next to the aforementioned rack.  I needed a bread basket - you guessed it - hanging off one of the wrought iron sides of the rack.  I reached for it and just then the rice canister balancing on the top came down, right onto my toe, crushing it.  Yup, not ashamed to admit I cried.  And then I got angry.  How can anyone live like this?  Too.  Much.  Stuff.  

The next day, after lots of icing and Motrin for the pain, I pulled out all that Stuff in the rack.  Only problem was, it had to go somewhere.  The appliances needed to go in the cupboard out of sight. But before I could do that, I had to clean out the bottom of the cupboard.  That stuff needed to go somewhere as well, so I cleaned another shelf, and another, in a mad pull-the-string-watch-it-unravel kind of a way, which made me realize that everything is connected to something else.  Three cupboards had to be reorganized and it took me most of an afternoon.  But I did it.  And I breathed a sigh of relief because in the process, I threw out a garbage can full of expired food, plastic containers with no matching tops, and an assortment of unrelated and not-needed-by-anyone-ever worthless items.  When I picked up something, I asked myself when I had used it last.  If the answer was "a very long time ago," or "I didn't even know I owned this," it went either in the trash or in a box for a garage sale.  If there truly was an emotional connection, I took a photo of it before throwing it out/selling it/giving it away.

My new commitment is to clean out one small area each day.  Stuff needs to go out the door, each and every day, even if it's only paper in the recycling bin.  I also started selling some of my Stuff on E-Bay.  This week I made $40 and got rid of a baby doll, a pocketbook, and a collectible I never really liked.  It's a win-win. Less clutter and money in my pocket.  The toe disaster got me to make a commitment, finally.  Thanks, Universe!