I may never use it but I will know it is there...

I'm smack in the middle of moving.  Moving my way too much stuff into storage because I cannot bring myself to just chuck it all out. 

It is obvious to me that my motivations are very different than my friends and family.  People helping me keep saying the stupidest things.   "You are going to feel so liberated when you get done getting rid of all this stuff."  "Bet all this work will make you never want to collect this much stuff again." "Doesn't this feel great, getting rid of all this stuff?"

No, it doesn't feel great.  No, it doesn't make me want to not collect, it makes me want to never move again.  I seriously doubt that I'll feel liberated.  What I do feel is diminished.  As though all those things I have are part of me, that I have to give up because I don't have money enough to have the space to keep them.

So, taking a break in the sorting decision making process, I go on spacebook and my daughter-in-law mentions hanging out at the pool at her apartment complex and I say something that I realize as soon as I hit send is a core of my desire to keep everything.  I say "Pool envy.  The next apartment I get will have a pool.  I may never use it, but I will know it is there."

I may never use it -- much of my stuff is raw materials for making things. and much of it I DON'T use.  Either I can't get to it cause of the stuff in front of it, or I don't know which box it is in, or I start some other project I don't finish either.  But I know it is there.  I can sometime in the future, when I decide to work on my UFO's (UnFinished Objects), or serendipitously find it while working on some project it works with, or I slowly uncover that box in my efforts to get my stuff in order and I finish that project.

Like a dragon, I have my piles of treasure.  Why do I keep them? Because I am a dragon.  It is what dragons do.  They don't have to be useful, they just have to be there.

So far

I have a garbage bag of clothes to take to Goodwill.  All stuff I don't love and have decided I don't need to keep.  Some of them are things that are too short in the waist, or were gifts from folks but not to my taste, or just no longer what I wear on a daily basis.  A few things are things I do wear but turned a "What not to wear" eye on them and out they went.    I'll have a couple boxes of winter clothing that I'll keep for October.  I'm getting down to small work wardrobe and my best play clothes and the rest are history.

I'm going to have lunch and then start on the boxes in the closet.  Oh the agony!

Back to clrearing out the clutter.

So I got the floor cleared off for my company.  Had a huge deadline for my job and was working 13 to 15 hour days so the clutter reduction project was on hold till that was over.   Deadline met day before yesterday.  Last night I just came home and slept.  Today I have to start moving out of my crib.  I'm sure I'll be making a lot of progress on clutter reduction as a result.  LOL!    I'll post a progress report.

Why do I still have...

So there it is, the model train set.  The model train set I've carried through 20 years and 5 moves and never set up.  Not once.  Why is this a part of my baggage?  Why do I keep it?

When I was a very little girl, even before I could clearly enunciate the words, I wanted "A train, a truck, and a tractor."  I was told when I could say the words I could have the things.  And I struggled till I could say t instead of f and got my shiny Lionel.  And when we moved not long after, it disappeared.   I didn't know what happened to it.  This happened to my precious belongings every time we moved.  They disappeared because my mother didn't want to move them, or the disappeared between moves because she didn't want to clean up after them, or there wasn't room to keep them.  I was never included in the decision making process.  Now I NEVER let go!  I've realized the voice of the person who keeps them is an angry two year old.  MINE! 

Why I bought this set was this:  My parents moved to a retirement community when I was in my early 30's.  They had to downsize to do it.  I visited one day while they were in the process of clearing out stuff and my mom says  "Would you mind storing some of your brother's old stuff till he can get it?  You can have what you want out of it if you don't want to keep it for him.  Oh by the way, we came across your old Lionel set and donated it to Goodwill."

I was livid at her total lack of personal boundries.  Her inappropriate suggestion that I take his stuff without his permission, and her disposal of a childhood treasure without even bothering to take one minute to call and see if I wanted it.  If she had carried it with all her belongings all this time, why had she never mentioned it to me?  I was bereft of it a second time!  So I went out and bought myself a replacement.  A better set with buidlings and all the things I'd wanted to have as a child.

I realize now I didn't really want the train.  I was reclaiming my ability to decide when I was ready to give it up.  I was waiting for a time when I was ready, when it wasn't determined by circumstance or at someone else's whim.  

Today, I am ready to let go of this symbol of childhood power and powerlessness.  I don't need it anymore.  If I want to enjoy a train set I can go online, find the nearest train club and go see theirs!  Our local club meets every Monday night at the Fairgrounds.   I'm betting the next time I'll see it is during the county fair, LOL!

Catch-up

Last week was too busy to post.  Ended up sacrificing parts of my days off for business and so I mostly blew off the clean-up.  And to be frank, I was getitng tired of the constant giving up process.  The week break did me good.  I'm ready to get back into this and make some more progress.

Having talked with my friends who are set to visit and sleep on my newfound floor has also fired me up for the rest of this.   Since I have a business trip next week and a day I'm working for my partner I only have three cleaning days left.  I LOVE deadlines!  They really kick in the adrenaline.

I have made a little progress in the area of ecologically sound disbursements of my stuff.  I gave the two collectable china figurines in their big boxes to a friend who was donating stuff to a fundraiser.  I emailed a local model railroad club so I can donate my HO trains and accessories since it is pretty evident after carrying these boxes thru 5 moves that I am not going to get around to making a set-up.

Ok so today I need to take the books to the Book Cafe and hope they will accept them this time.  And I have to pay my storage so I figure I'll muck out one of those and rearrange so I can put in stuff that I really want stored.  I'll take a few things with me to put there.    I'm going to have to clear out my car trunk too.  Cause I can't move stuff around if I'm carrying stuff around. 

Thursday progress report

Decided to start at my door and work inwards today.  First item is the pile of books to my right that I've been meaning to take to the local book store for several months now.  Over those months it has grown so I had to pull out another grocery bag to put the excess.  These with the box out of storage make it worth the trip.  Next time, when the bag gets full, they go right away.

I've been picking away at the mess in my room all week.  The pile in front of the tv is a third of its original size.  Originally a three foot high pile that extended out four feet from the TV and was 6 feet across it is now only two feet out and in most spots only two feet tall.  I can see at least six feet of floor and I no longer have to thread my way thru to my bed.  It is really nice to have floor again.

Unfortunately the pile on the seat next to me on the couch is collecting clutter again.  When I've finished the process of  reducing my possessions to the point where I can use the work surfaces in my room, I'm not going to let this happen.  Right now, my sofa is my only work space.   I have fabric I'm sorting thru, my bag of in process quilting blocks, my workbasket of tools and some piles of in process projects on the back of the sofa.    Of course, this is how that last person sized pile started.  I guess I better make a point of clearing it off every couple of weeks.

I'm off to take the books back and do a few errands.  Be back soon...

Back after all my errands.  And no books unloaded.  Thursday being the last day they take books, their quota was full.  So the books will live in my car till next Tueday when I will take them first thing in the morning.

I did a bit of project shuffling.  Moved all my balls of fabric yarn into one bag to take to Thursday night knitting group which freed up three project boxes.  Took a couple of the projects off the back of the sofa and put them into the boxes and onto my project case.    I'm getting hungry so I think I'll take a break to start dinner then I"m going to get up on the step ladder and start on the upper shelf of my closet.  Got to get down the two boxes I promised to donate to a silent auction and get those into the car.

Oh and I cleaned out a bag of fabric kipple.  Alot of it was stuffing for the dog bed project.  Couldn't find the bed I was stuffing.  It has gotten lost in the mess here, so I made another one and started stuffing it.  It sure will be nice when I get to the point that stuff stops disappearing. 

There, dinner is started.  Split peas are cooking in my rice pot.  Since the directions are almost the same as for cooking brown rice, I'm trying it out.  When they finish cooking I'll add 1/2 a can of Italian style tomato chunks and call it a meal.

Between sessions

Tues or Thurs each week is my day to make a serious effort at reducing the clutter in my life.  The other five days I think of as just holding the line.   I have to fight my desire to increase what I have.  There are so many temptations.   People come into the shop I own and offer us stuff.  Do you want... the fabric stash of a dearly departed fabric hoarder, the collection of buttons from grandma that a non-sewer has no use for, the wonderful spandex scraps from a bathing suit company, the stuff they are downsizing as they retire?  I so want to adopt all those orphaned sewing items!

I keep having to remind myself that I do not have the space for my fabrics, so I surely do not have room for someone's discards.  I'm also trying to pick one item a day to let go of, or find a new home for, donate to a good charity, or just plain throw away.  One thing doesn't seem like much but I know that is how they came into my life in dribs and drabs over time; a slow, steady build-up that now is overwhelming in volume.

I also try to make a plan of attack for the next session.  I start thinking about it a few days beforehand.  Tuesday is only a couple of days away.  I've really enjoyed the week away from the effort.  I also know if I don't have a clear idea of what pile or stack or corner I'm going to attack, I will just dither and end up not accomplishing anything. 

So this Tuesday, I plan to shuttle the grocery bag and a half of books over to the Book Cafe and leave them there to see if I can get any credit towards new books by selling them the ones I have.  That will be a bonus. I will be so glad to not have them sitting by my door anymore.  They have been there for months, and they fall over at least 10 times a week.  I'll deliver the dog beds I made to the SPCA.  Hopefully I'll have another box or two of things to donate to Goodwill.  This time I know they are going to ask for me to list what I'm donating so I'll be sure to write one up as I go along.

I'm thinking I want to start emptying my closet out.  I had a friend come by the shop and tell me about this auction a local private school is having and I have two china collectable horse figurines in their original boxes that I've decided I no longer want to keep but didn't want to send to Goodwill.  I  wanted them to go to someone who would appreciate their beauty.  To have it also help a good cause is an extra bonus.  It helps me feel ok about giving it up. 

It is a new feeling I'm not used to having.  In the past, I gave up my stuff unwillingly, downsizing because the slings and arrows of outrageous ill fortune and I missed and grieved over every lost item.  It is different when I'm choosing to no longer carry them with me into the future.  Now, I'm looking at everything I own with a different eye.  Asking myself if I really want to share space with this thing or that thing anymore or if I would be happier if I have space where things used to be. 

I'm starting to look forwards to the day when I have more than a narrow pathway from door to bed and can put my arms out in the middle of the room and not have stuff in the way.

If I take the stuff out of the closet that no longer serves my needs, I'll have room to store the things that are truly important to me.   Hopefully a lot less things.