Out of the closet? I can't even get into my closet! I can hardly get into my room.
I used to think I was a collector. I collect fabric, art supplies, glass, silverplate, china, hats, books, fabric, patterns, ceramics, sets of dinnerplates, sewing machines, doll houses and the things that go in doll houses, toy trains, more fabric, pictures to do collage, buttons, nail polish, rocks and shells, even my old used popsicle sticks.
All that is fine if you have a great big house to put it all in. And for the longest time I moved from one house to a bigger house to a bigger house. But about 8 years ago, I moved from a 2000 square foot house to a 1000 square foot house. I told the movers I had a LOT of stuff, to send a big truck cause I had enough stuff for a family of four, the truck wasn't big enough. The movers told me I had enough for 2 families of four and on moving day I had to do triage. Take these things and leave what didn't fit behind. I felt like someone had amputated a part of me. Do I remember what was so important to me that I left behind? ... um... no.
The house I moved to didn't have an attic or a basement or a second unit, or a garage. And even tho I had left behind enough stuff to fill a maxi size dumpster ( I know this cause I paid to have all that stuff hauled to the dump) I filled the new house past capacity. The two upstairs rooms were floor to ceiling packed with my stuff. You know, the way you pack a storage bin from back to front with no space unfilled and the only open area the spot where the door has to swing.
Did I stop? No, I went to auctions and bought more. Not every time, but often enough. My house was bulging at its seams and I loved it. I had lots of pretties and could pack them up and trade them with some of the other things every season.
After five years, I decided I wanted to move back to the town I love in California. That I would rather be poor here than well to do anywhere else, so I came back to the town I think of as home, found a job and instead of having a house of my own I rented a room. 12 x 16 with a wall to wall closet, a couple of cupboards instead of a kitchen, and only 200 square feet of space to live in. I went back up to my out of state house and it was more than decimation. I came back to California with 1/10th of the stuff. It wasn't enough. I just couldn't bring myself to let go of enough stuff to be comfortable in my reduced circumstances. I kept thinking someday soon I'd be able to get someplace larger. In the meantime I would just have to put up with wall to wall boxes, piles of stuff everywhere, tiny little walkways between it and three storage units for what didn't fit.
sigh...Ok so that is the backstory.
Names are fictitious, to protect the identity of anyone who might be ashamed, upset, or mortified to be in my blog. I am not the owner of any company that provides services to the terminally cluttered. Thought I was being "original" in picking the name... but a websearch proves me wrong about that! LOL!
