I have written before in these pages how I have an ongoing battle with the stuff that fills up my home. If it isn't food hiding in the back of my fridge or cupboard, it's junk accumulating in my basement or shed. I'm not quite sure why this happens, but I collect stuff like a damn magnet.
Every year around this time I get a kind of panicky frantic feeling, like I am getting short of breath and can't concentrate. I have to fight the urge to call up one of those construction debris places and rent a big garbage bin – the kind that has to be brought and taken away via flatbed truck – to park outside a window, and just start turfing. Imagine the freedom. If I could somehow be assured that someone will go through that bin at the other end and remove all of the re-useable and recyclable stuff, recycle it all properly and donate the rest of it to a good cause, I would sign up immediately.
I once read link after link after link about the phenomenon of hoarding. One thing stuck with me: that often the hoarding behavior starts with an uncertainty about how to properly dispose of something. I would add to that that it's not only uncertainty, but also laziness, because it often takes a lot more effort to dispose of something than it does to acquire it. Especially since in most cases, the bloom is off the rose; it's an object that we no longer want to deal with in any capacity, so we toss it into a corner and try to forget about it.
Sometimes I admire the people I see in magazines or whatever, who live in homes free of knickknacks. I think "wow how liberating, look how much space they have to breathe and think, how relaxed they must feel. Look at how much potential there is. Look at the well-placed objects on those mostly-empty shelves." But then I feel kind of sad for them, that they're not surrounded by the things they love or that make them happy to look at. I imagine they too must have closets or storage lockers full of old school assignments and stuffed toys missing eyes and clothes that don't quite fit anymore.
A lot of our problem lies in knickknack acquisition. When you have interests and those interests are made public, people latch onto them and that becomes the thing they know about you. And they shop accordingly, for all birthdays and Christmases forever into eternity. Take, for example, my husband's love of fishing. Hubby is a world-class fishing nut. He thinks about fishing about 78.5 times a day, I'm sure. When people meet him and talk with him for more than an hour, they come away with the knowledge that he is a man who loves fish. However, this does not mean that he necessarily loves fish boxer shorts, fish notecards, fish xmas lights, fish carvings, fish poems, fish pens, fish keychains and the BigMouth Billy Bass™. A short list of fish things that he actually likes could include: nerdy vintage fish science textbooks that are impossible to find, actual smoked fish, fish t-shirts that he picks himself (to wear fishing), very very very specific fishing lures that are also impossible to find, and fish taxidermy. Similarly, people know that I like dogs (more recently) and cats (formerly). So I have a ton of humour books about cats, cat notepads, a Crazy Cat Lady doll set, etc etc the list goes on.
Here is a list of things that I am actually into: storage containers, household organizers, high-end vacuum cleaners, garbage cans, and my kid.
I have recently discovered a whole new angle on this stuff-acquisition problem: having a child. People LOOOVE to shop for kids, myself included. Every week at least one new thing enters our home, aimed at Nora. Admittedly a lot of the stuff I acquire is clothing – I never in my life imagined how much clothing we could go through. Sometimes I think "enough! She has 1,800 pairs of pants and that is enough!" but then all of a sudden I go to get a pair and there are only 2 in the drawer, both of them too short. Then I feel the pull of Old Navy tugging at me. The seasons change and I realize that for this short in-between season we actually need hoodies, cardigants, splash pants, bigger rain boots, a rain coat, and toss in an umbrella for fun. Summer is coming. Great right? Smaller clothing, less of it? Nope: new bathing suit, life jacket, water shoes, sandals, sunscreen, a larger sun hat, etc etc etc.
I also realize that about half of all clothing I got for her before she was born is redundant and fits the wrong season. A lot of the things we received as gifts have never been worn or worn only once, because it was too big last summer and this summer it'll be way too small, or it just never suited her at all (too girly, too squat, etc). That's the way it goes. I kind of have to get her clothes 'à la minute' because I never can tell when the spurts will happen. I feel badly that a lot of these things have been wasted. It keeps bringing to mind the big question of 'will I have another one?' but that is another topic for another day. I save the clothes in case I or someone very close to me has a(nother) baby, and it makes me weepy and sentimental to go through them, but some of the less-special things can be given away. Because, after all, it is super fun to buy new baby clothes.
However, the toys are officially out of control. She's starting to get to the point where she can't possibly play with them all and some of them are being forgotten. The cottage is the solve-all for this and other storage issues – she will need to have a small set of toys to play with up there during quiet times away from the lake and the great outdoors. Stuffed toys for her room, a ride-on toy for the deck, a selection of books - I am not hauling toys back and forth so this venture will inject some novelty into the whole thing. Some of the toys are really 'baby' toys and can be put away under the cover of night, when she will never notice they are gone. Lately all she wants to play with are rocks and pinecones anyway.
Ultimately, I think this is the answer to my problems: forget the spring cleaning. Wait for the cottage. Stock the cottage full of stuff I've already got, that we've been hoarding for years in anticipation of this moment, and then re-assess. In the fall, rent that garbage bin and be mercenary about the whole thing. Stick to my guns. Donate household stuff to the local community centre's second-hand 'shop', clothes to value village, books to the library. Pitch the old computer. Recycle old magazines I'm not going to 'get to later ' and cancel the subscriptions (keep Martha for inspiration). Make a pact that when we buy a new thing we get rid of the old thing, don't just put it downstairs and forget about it. Try on clothes before buying them so I can see if they really don't fit or flatter. Buy good products instead of many products. Don't acquire things we won't definitely use within a year. Don't buy anything without assessing whether or not I already have that thing or something that can be used in its place. Don't pick up other peoples' garbage. I am going to make a list of these points, print it out, and leave it all over the house.
It's going to be an uphill battle but I think we can do it.
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