Too Much Stuff – Part One

Too Much Stuff – Part One

The last 3-5 months I’ve been really starting to focus on how much stuff I have around me and what portion of that I really truly like or use. This last month, that focus has started to turn into a big goal and perhaps small obsession. For the last 4-5 years, I’ve seen book after book and article after article claiming to have the best organization hacks (another of my words-I-can’t-stand). And if it’s not some crazy organization gimmick it’s pushing the idea that organized stuff somehow, miraculously, will lead to a calm, organized, and perfect life. This is pretty much all bullshit. Let me explain a little further.

I’ve been collecting stuff for years. Some of it has been all my doing, some of it has been given to me and some of it has just always been there. I grew up in a house where the garage was a place where a person could barely walk, yet no motor vehicle ever parked in it. There were cabinets and hutches full of things and boxes of additional stuff pushed under them. Tabletops, piano tops, shelves and counters were at least 95% covered most of the time. This was a multi-generational thing, this was my normal, this is how I was trained. I didn’t know anything else. So it has been ingrained in me that stuff should equal happiness or at least home and/or comfort.

Beyond that general house atmosphere, I also received numerous messages that if someone gave you a present, you were thankful for it and kept it even if it was something you didn’t need or want. If someone handed down some type of heirloom, regardless of style, quality, or use, it was intended to be kept in perpetuity because it once belonged to a family member regardless if that item fit into the life you actually lead.

I also grew up in a family with little money, so things were always hobbled together. My parents always figured that if it was broke it could be fixed and that somehow that would save money. This only seemed to work if the broken item was actually fixed, which in our house just rarely seemed to happen, the broken pile just kept growing. But there is a fundamental idea in that thought, our society throws items in the trash (a.k.a. landfill) way too quickly. I like that I have some basic value in knowing that I can take a little extra time to fix something and keep using it rather than just trashing it. And that does save money and is more environmentally friendly and so I’m grateful for that lesson. But I’ve recently realized that there are many things in my house that are just like my parents’, too many broken or potentially useful things just piled up in corners and not being useful in any way and not things that I even remember I have.

Just over a year ago, I had my first emotional breakthrough with the Stuff (I feel like it needs to be properly named Stuff so I did). I had just moved again which meant also starting a new job in a new place. This is a trend in my adult life. I had been in therapy long enough to recognize that I wasn’t feeling quite right, but I couldn’t identify what was going on. I remember I was standing in the basement, where half is full of stored items like Christmas decorations and sleeping bags and half is filled with an overabundance of my collected craft supplies. After several days of unease and an increasing depression, I was looking around and it hit me that there was too much stuff that was just sitting there.

I first saw a shelf of board games, at least a dozen of them, and I realized that we had moved over 10 times in 15 years and each time, those games were packed up, moved, unpacked and placed in a cabinet of some type where they sat unnoticed until the next move. We don’t play board games at our house. With others in their houses, yes, but not at ours. I grabbed a box and sorted through the games, putting in the ones that I just didn’t think we’d ever want or use again and whittled the stacked down by about half. I set that box off to the side of the basement and left it there. Over the next few weeks, I’d shuffle around in the basement, trying to organize and sort through some things that we had just moved. I would grab a random item as I came across it and asked myself it if was something we really wanted or needed, if not, it went into the box. That box turned into two with old Easter baskets, decorative shelves and unused exercise equipment stacked inside. I had a separate small pile that was for specialty items I thought I could take to an antique store. After about 8 months, the first two boxes (neither all that small) went to Goodwill along with a box of clothes we had gathered up over time. It felt like a few pounds had been lifted off my shoulders and it was a really wonderful feeling.

(To be continued in Part Two…stay tuned!)