Tackling the cluttery...

If you go to the Oxford English Dictionary (oh, how I love thee, OED!) , the noun clutter is defined as: a crowded and confused assemblage; unwanted images on a radar screen; noisy turmoil or disturbance, hubbub. Move on to the verb and you get: to run together in knots or heaps; to crowd together; to crowd a space with a disorderly assemblage of things. You can keep going and discover the word cluttery defined as disorder and dirt.

I am hardly alone in welcoming the new year with a goal of tackling the cluttery. We are rather fortunate that we don’t have an overwhelming amount of disorder and dirt as we did the big tackle when retirement was looming.

We knew we wanted and needed to move to a smaller place once we retired, so we began the decluttering process early. Tom was already retired so while I was at work, he would go through our various closets and cabinets and when I arrived home in the evening, our dining room table would be covered with an assortment of possessions.

He was never pushy about it. His usual statement was: “These are all things I could live without. Take a look and see what you think. If there is anything you want to keep, we can keep it. If there are things you no longer want, we can donate them.” We sold a few things and we even had an auction house deal with a few things we thought might have value (note: we didn’t really make any significant money in doing this).

At first I would look at the items and think, “Oh, I love this.” Or “I remember when such and such gave us this…”. Sentimentality is the sticky flypaper when it comes to decluttering. But in just a short amount of time, I realized it was time to let go. I removed a few items from the table but most were ready for new owners (or the trash).

Things never stayed on the dining room table more than 24 hours. We realized we did not want to devote excessive time and energy to making the decisions about what we did not want or need. Yes, probably some of the items we “wanted” but we knew we did not “need” most of the items. So away they all went.

There were a few things I could not part with—like my mother’s china—so we started to use it as our everyday dishes and we gave away our other dishes. And yes, china, even with its gold trim, can be washed safely in the dishwasher. It’s a joy to use. Both the china and the dishwasher.

It was also easier to give things away knowing that neither of our children really wanted our “stuff.” By the time one’s children reach their 40’s, they have their own stuff and are in no need of anyone else’s. The very few antiques we had, we sold. Neither of our children wanted a gigantic, heavy, dark mahogany dresser that had belonged to Tom’s grandfather. They could have bought a household full of furniture rather than pay to move that mammoth dresser. 

Our daughter, who is a champion when it comes to letting go of stuff, was a good cheerleader throughout the process. So little by little, things disappeared. A huge collection of scrapbooking materials (even though I hadn’t done any scrapbooking for ten years). A plethora of cloth carry-bags. Iced tea spoons. Duffle bags from when our son was going to camp every summer. Anything that even hinted of “knick-knacks” found their way to the decision table. Small framed prints (not original art work which we kept). Books. Books. Oh, so many books! Toys. Towels. Sheets. Photo frames. Old tools. Coffee mugs. Duplicate items (why did we have so many spatulas?!?).

We did let go of some things we loved when we knew or suspected we would not have room in the small apartment that was our retirement goal. Our garden statue of St. Francis went to some dear friends who also graciously made a home for a stained glass piece that was too large for apartment-sized windows. It felt wonderful to pass loved things on to people we loved.

Tom sold his entire collection of LP records and CDs. The stereo system went, too. Spotify and Apple Music now provide diverse, ever changing music choices. Tom also parted ways with his collection of ZAP comics and the complete series of CoEvolution Quarterly/ Whole Earth Catalogs we had collected over many years. We’d enjoyed them but we didn’t need to hold on to any of them.

Lots of clothing was either donated or trashed. There were items we had never worn. There were t-shirts we had saved because maybe some day we might look really good in that t-shirt that was two sizes too small. Tom even parted with his tuxedo. Yes, why was he holding on to a tuxedo all these years?! That was donated, not sold. I donated clerical stoles, my academic hood, a tippet and other such items to young, recently ordained clergy. It seems so much better that they will be used rather than hang unused and pushed to the side in our closet.

Yes, a few things we sold but most we just donated. We realized that just because we had an attachment to something did not make it valuable to anyone else. We didn’t go completely minimalist but we came out of the process with the few items we truly love and have essentially forgotten the stuff that was making our lives a crowded hubbub.

There was an excellent article by Jane Brody in the NYTimes recently— https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/20/well/mind/how-to-declutter.html —about why we clutter and what we can do to get rid of clutter. The article itself is quite interesting as are the comments people left in response to the article. Here is one of my favorite comments. It offers good guidelines:

I got serious about decluttering more than a decade ago. Here are my go-to strategies:

1) Paper is the enemy of clean. I don’t let any paper past my front hall closet in which sits my recycling bin and a small filing cabinet for absolutely vital-only paper. Bills are paid online including those that still come in the mail which are paid on my phone app standing in front of the closet and then recycled immediately. (They will send a check to anyone, so “my lawn service doesn’t take online payments” is no excuse).

2) The container is the limit. ( from the blog A Slob comes Clean) I have one box…one… for each of my kids and our memories, cards…drawings etc…. The box is full? Something has to go.

3) Your closet is a container and same philosophy applies.

4) Keep the kitchen counters as empty as possible. Unless you use something on the counter at least weekly it needs a home elsewhere. If you don’t have anywhere else to put it, it’s time to let it go or let something else go to make room for it.

5) Stop obsessing over finding the perfect home for that thing. Unless it’s very valuable, give it away to who ever will take it. And even if it’s valuable, if no one seems to want it and you can’t figure out how to get money for it, it’s not really valuable any longer. Get rid of it.

I like these guidelines because I still need reminders. Especially about paper clutter. I find that I will be forever decluttering my desk area and getting rid of the little scraps of paper where I write down random thoughts or grocery lists. I have to do a good desk purge about once a month and not allow myself to think that just because Einstein kept an exceedingly messy desk that I too will be a genius if I do the same.

Clutter has a very sneaky way of reappearing and beginning to grow and grow again. Both Tom and I (since we do now live in a 900 square foot apartment) have to periodically declutter things that have wiggled their way into our space. We share a closet and I can guarantee we have not invented a means of making closet space grow. The solution is just to periodically declutter and purge. We truly love our small, cozy space. It is just right for us.

But perhaps you live in a much larger space and you aren’t moving, so why bother? Well, that is certainly up to each person. The only thing I can say is how much better we feel, emotionally and even physically, living with less. For me, I see decluttering as a mental health exercise. Or as Jane Brody writes:

…clutter is distracting, stealing attention from worthy thoughts and tasks. It saps time and energy and diminishes productivity. And, a 2015 study at St. Lawrence University found that a cluttered bedroom goes hand in hand with a poor night’s sleep.

I think clutter sometimes goes hand in hand with depression as well. It is unsettling to me to live with items that aren’t being regularly used or enjoyed. Getting rid of clutter can open both space and heart.

After my mother died, my brother found evidence that she had a storage unit. None of us knew about this and because of my mother’s dementia, she had stopped paying for the unit; my brother had to pay the back fees and fines as well as pay to move the junk (and it was all junk). What we discovered was that my mother had rented the unit around the time her parents died (as she didn’t know what to do with some random items nor did she want it in her own home). There was not a single valuable item in the storage unit; it was primarily some old trunks (empty) that had been in my grandparents’ attic. For almost three decades my mother had paid to store things that she didn’t want or need. How I wish she could have gotten rid of those things and used that rental money (which we estimated to be around $20,000) to travel or renovate her kitchen and to enjoy life rather than try to store pieces of a past life.

If you love your clutter, then I say, keep loving it. But if you feel it is suffocating you, maybe it is time to breathe more deeply and enjoy the freedom of letting go. Let go a little or let go a lot. It’s a new year. We each get to decide how to live it.

Here is a way to consider tackling clutter. Even though we did the big tackle already, I am going to take on this challenge for January 2022. A fresh, clean way to start the new year. Anyone want to join me?