Here's some more inspiration from Thrive:
Cate Palmer writes in an article titled How Decluttering My House Decluttered My Mind
about helping us to clear our heads by starting with our immediate surrounding personal environment.
I don't think my parents were clutter collectors until two kids came along and they slowly allowed things to get out of hand in our very small home. This is also connected to the lack of structure and discipline we were brought up without. It became so disorganized and overwhelming to deal with that my dad tried to have garage sales and my mom took us to the flea market to try and sell some stuff. But it was really difficult by that time to let go of things and I didn't like the idea of another person having something of ours. Weird, right?
I was mad that our house was so small and didn't think it was fair that my friends' houses had basements and attics and storage rooms or sheds. And all those (to me, very unrealistic) movies where a grown person goes home to see their parents, still in the house where they grew up, and their childhood room is exactly how they left it when they moved away. And all their childhood things were put away nicely in organized boxes on shelves in the basement. I call bullshit!
We just had two small closets and a garage (unattached, and so full of random boxes mixed with valuable mementos and genuine junk that we could never put an actual car in it. I know that's not totally unusual, but it had leaks and some great memories were ruined by mold.) It was so overfilled and unorganized that we had to climb up over the piles of stuff to look for things. It was always an interesting adventure spending hours in there, crawling around, sitting atop the piles, reading magazines and comics, looking at childhood toys and old pictures. But it wasn't a healthy place. There were spiders and bugs and moldy dirty cardboard boxes and lots of dust.
I think even though clutter and stuff had and still has, a negative impact in my life, it also has a comforting and peaceful association. There were moments of supreme calm and quiet hanging out and reading in the garage, atop the hoarded personal treasures.It can be creative and inspiring to be surrounded by books and magazines and tools and art supplies. But it isn't helpful when there's no clear space to work. Outside clutter can create cloudy mental space, and it's physically not possible to even think clearly when there's literally only inches of space in between the hundred objects on the desk...
My mom also strived to create and encourage a very creative household, and it makes sense to not maintain a fastidiously organized space if you want to support being open minded and free thinking. But even though I find a degree of comfort in all the stuff, it's so h e a v y, literally and figuratively. I would like to say goodbye forever to as much of it as I possibly can, without promoting a mental breakdown into sentimentality. I mean, ideally, it should have the opposite effect, and provide a freeing emotional result.
I don't know. I actually went into the GSW today, where you can rent a small space to sell or re-sell junk and vintage stuff, and talked to them a little about how it all works. It's $95 a month though. I was imagining it would be more like $50 or $60. It's a great idea if I could figure out what to actually sell and if it's better to do that or on E-bay. That's been my problem for a long time. Being willing to sell stuff and actually doing it are two different things. Okay friends. Goodnight and God Bless and good luck in organizing your closets this week! ! !
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