Monthly Archives: November 2018

Decluttering, Denial and Aging

By Claire Posted in Clutter, downsizing, Simpler Living Tagged , , , , , ,

(The second of three posts on Decluttering and Denial.)

As you get older, you don’t need so many belongings to survive, or even just to keep yourself entertained (whether you’re entertained by hobbies, redecorating or recreation.) We learned that when we were forced to downsize our lives several years ago. However, I can’t help but notice that many friends and relatives near our age (or older) continue to live in large houses packed full of stuff. I remember how stifling our clutter burden was before we were finally forced to go through it. I can’t imagine how these people my age live with the burden of all their stuff, most of it packed away where they can’t see it, while the mental weight of knowing it will all have to be dealt with someday weighs on their minds.

The most interesting situations are those of people quite a bit older than me. We know some people who actually bought bigger houses in their old age. Now they struggle to take care of those homes, but won’t give them up. Forced to hire cleaning people, they no longer live with dirt, but the burden of all their possessions continues to haunt them. They’ll complain about it, but they won’t do anything about it. If you offer to help them go through it all, they’ll say no (at least, that’s been my experience.)

I suspect they are in denial about the fact that they are in the final years of their lives. Going through possessions, giving meaningful items to loved ones, giving up items that once meant something but now collect dust….such activities are a little too much for them to think about, because they’ll be forced to confront their own mortality.

Most of us don’t like thinking about dying. But to stick your head in the sand and ignore the burden you’ll leave behind, whether you can handle the idea of dying or not, is unfair to the people you’ll leave behind. They’ll have to go through all of your belongings. In many families, this activity brings out the worst in people, because greed seems to rear its ugly head when there’s an estate to be divided.

The people who accept that they won’t live forever, and who downsize willingly while in their 50s, 60s or later, should be praised by their loved ones for not leaving them a mess to go through someday. When you whittle down your belongings to just what you need, downsize your living space to just what you need, and live simply, you make your life easier, and the lives of your future heirs inestimably easier. That is to be applauded in this world of overstuffed attics, basements, garages and storage units!

Decluttering, Denial, and Grief

By Claire Posted in Clutter, downsizing, Simpler Living Tagged , , , , , ,

(The first of three posts on Decluttering and Denial.)

I was in 7th grade when my gym teacher’s young daughter died of leukemia. Everyone in my community felt so sorry for him and his family. After a few years, a rumor got around that he had not allowed his daughter’s bedroom to be changed in any way since her death. To us kids, that was spooky.

Now, as an adult, I get it. Most grieving people need a certain amount of time (which varies greatly depending on the person) before they can give up their late loved one’s belongings. Most people can do it within a few months (sometimes they’re forced to by circumstances), but then there are people like Edna and Henry, who I wrote about in Downsizing Your Life for Freedom, Flexibility and Financial Peace. They lost their mothers in the same year and brought many of their belongings into their own home. Those belongings still fill every nook and cranny of their home, thirty years later.

Denial is actually a stage of grief. It takes a while to accept that someone is gone. One way our minds cope with the fact is to deny it. Denial is a temporary stage. But keeping all of our loved one’s belongings helps prolong the denial and assuage the grief, for a while.

After the initial shock of the loss is past, some people are able to move on by going through their loved one’s belongings, keeping the most precious items, and sending the rest to places where they’ll be appreciated (a concept I emphasize in both How to Clean Out Your Parent’s House (Without Filling Up Your Own) and The Sentimental Person’s Guide to Decluttering.) This is only possible when you reach the point where you truly understand that keeping all of a late loved one’s belongings cannot erase the pain of losing them.

Sharing those items with others helps a grieving person heal. Making someone’s clothes into quilts, pillows or stuffed animals is one way of sharing a tangible memory of a late loved one with others, and helps both the giver and the recipient to heal from the grief.

Sometimes keeping a late loved one’s belongings lets you avoid making a decision about your future. Someone might have a dream of retiring to a condo near a beach someday, but they say they can’t, because what would they do with all of the heirloom furniture left to them by their parents years ago? When you allow inanimate objects to dictate where you can live, consider if you aren’t using them as an excuse to keep you from making a decision that you’re afraid to make.

His and Hers Clutter

By Claire Posted in Clutter, Personal Tagged , , , ,

Within our extended family, there is a pair of married packrats. Their house achieved hoarder status long ago, with tall piles of junk lining paths through rooms. No one has been in their dining room for 20 years because the floor is covered with piles of stuff; you can’t even see the table or chairs.

It sets off my claustrophobia to see teetering piles of stuff on every surface. I don’t really like eating at their house on holidays or birthdays because their kitchen counters have so much stuff on them that I don’t see how they can possibly keep them clean enough to prepare food. My adult kids won’t go there anymore because it’s too hard to keep their toddlers safe.

So I have a very hard time visiting these two relatives. I just want to back up the truck and clean that place out. I don’t know how they stand all that mess. But I suspect that there’s some kind of competition going on.

You see, they use each other’s clutter as an excuse for keeping their own. When one brings home more stuff, the other declares that they shouldn’t have to give up any of their own clutter just to make room for their spouse to bring home things they’ve bought. The result is a steadily filling house.

It’s hard enough for an individual to conquer their clutter issues. But it’s twice as hard when it involves a couple. There’s no one there to encourage them to get a handle on the mess. Instead, they keep adding to it.

Interestingly, no one in the family ever comments on the piles of stuff surrounding us as we sit and visit. After all, they’re both middle-aged adults, and we’re not their mommies. But I guarantee, many of us are thinking, “Get a dumpster! STAT!”

 

How to Get Over Decluttering Regret

By Claire Posted in Clutter, Debt-Free, downsizing, Personal, Small-House Living Tagged , , ,

It’s been seven years since we completed our massive decluttering effort, and six years since our grandchildren began arriving. What this means is that from time to time, I find myself wishing I still had something I got rid of, usually something that a grandchild would have liked or that one of my adult children who is now a parent wishes I had saved.

This is tough. That regret is painful. I can picture the item so clearly in my mind, but it’s long gone.

The most recent example is educational toys. I once had a fine collection, curated over many years of raising a large family. But I let go of most of it when we moved to the small house we live in now. There just wasn’t any room for it.

According to her pediatrician, one of our grandchildren may be gifted. This child has a very active mind and body and needs to be kept busy; her response to boredom is to get into trouble. Her parents have discovered that keeping her occupied with challenging puzzles and other activities is the key to saving their collective sanity.

I understand completely, and wistfully imagine how nice it would be to give them all those great educational toys we once had. But they’re gone.

I’ve begun to see, however, that it’s a complete waste of time to regret this, and particularly to dwell on it. It’s not as though there are no other educational toys left in the world. Rather than mourn the loss of what we had, I’ve been taking that energy and putting it into finding new educational toys for my tiny tornado, as I fondly call my very active granddaughter.

I’ve been checking out thrift stores and garage sales, and what I’ve discovered is that many kids are given educational toys, but few use them. So I’m finding very nice puzzles, games and other toys in like-new condition for mere pennies. Sometimes the packages are still sealed!

I buy these things and keep them at home until I see my grandchild. Until that happens, they take up space in my little house, so I’m glad to get them out of here. And, of course, my grandchild and her folks are thrilled with them.

There are no strings to these gifts, no emotional attachment involved. They can keep them or get rid of them once she’s bored with them. It doesn’t matter to me. I’m just happy to help out.

This is a new attitude for me. If I’d kept all of my kids’ educational toys, I’d be saying things like, “Give it back to me when she’s tired of it in case another grandchild needs it,” or “Don’t let her rip that, it was yours when you were little.” I would want that collection to be preserved.

But it’s gone. These “new” items are serving a purpose for a time and then they will be gone, too. That’s OK. There’s a lot of freedom in doing things this way, and the end result is that my house stays uncluttered. So much for decluttering regret!