Wow! Packing up someone’s lifetime is certainly tough but also seems to be part of the healing process. Just like I wanted to make sure Mom was taken care of just the way she wanted to be, I want her things to be respectfully taken care of as well.
I want to make sure certain things stay in the family and other things be put to good use by someone else. Mom would have wanted that.
And yes there is a lot of things that need to be thrown away. Mom never quite shook some of what was ingrained in her DNA being born during the Great Depression and a child/teenager during WWII. If you’ve lived through rationing and having to do without, you certainly learned how to reuse things – from plastic plates, to carryout containers… the list goes on. They had a hard time throwing perfectly good things away even if they didn’t need them.
I know my silblings and I have a bit of that in our DNA, but we’re working on it. Like a lot of people in this situation, I’ve made the vow to get my own house in order – don’t want my kids to have to wade through a lot of stuff someday.
And I know we’re not alone – I checked Amazon and there are page after page of books on how to declutter. An article I read says we hold on to things for basically three reasons:
- You think you might need it at some point
- You don’t like waste
- You have a sentimental attachment to it
My response to those three:
- I might need it but for every one thing I will need, I’m pretty sure there will be 20 I don’t.
- I hate to waste things too, so find good homes for it, donate it or if it is not of use – toss it.
- The toughest one for me is the sentimental part but after thinking about it a bit, I’m going to go back through my stack of things to save and take a good hard look at it before I send it to my house. If it’s going to end up in the basement packed away, I’m not sending it, and will go back to #1 and #2 to decide what to do.
And I particularly like some advice that I read that said, buy better things. Don’t buy cheap stuff that you have to keep replacing, splurge on better quality things. I’m going to use that one on my husband regarding justifying my shoe habit!!
It’s Spring time (almost) so I hope your inspired to declutter a bit too!
http://www.smaggle.com/2014/01/09/how-to-throw-things-away-like-a-god-damn-grown-up/
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