When you’re little, your space is not your own. Even if you have your own room, it’s probably filled with the furniture your parents gave you and there are limits on what you can and cannot keep in there. You must have a bed. No, you cannot keep the neighbour’s dog.
It can take awhile as a grownup to realize that these rules no longer hold. To realize that you get to have in your house the things that you want in there and you don’t have to have the things you don’t really want (unless the person you share living space with disagrees and then you’ll have to learn to negotiate). To realize, in fact, that there are no Stuff Police.
The first step to decluttering is to decide if you really need to. If you like a certain amount of flotsam around you but your mother disapproves, well, let her tidy her own house. But, if you’re at all like me, you find minimalism soothing, restful. Definitely worth pursuing.
Which is when you can find yourself running head first into the thinking that there are some things that everyone must have, like good china, a dryer, a cd collection. We’ve done away with all of those and never looked back. We don’t own a TV or microwave either and don’t miss them at all.
I don’t tell you this to brag or because I believe it’s wrong to have these things. If they give you pleasure, or make your life easier, keep them, but if you find yourself wishing you didn’t have to bother with them, well, guess what? YOU DON’T HAVE TO BOTHER WITH THEM!
If the thought of living without any of this is giving you palpitations, don’t worry about it. You’re still welcome at this blog. This isn’t about living up to anyone else’s arbitrary standards. It’s about figuring out what does and doesn’t work for you and living in a way that serves you best.
I recently decluttered my room from unnecessary things and old clothes. It was a really relaxing experience.
Oscar
Cool. Enjoy the results!
Good idea, time to clear away the wreckage of the past, including the ‘souvenirs’ I’ve accumulated along the way.
Love your blog
Thanks Sandy!
Just remember to take some time to relax and be good to yourself!
When I divorced the children’s father and he moved his stuff out, the girls and I stayed in the same cheap tacky apartment for a couple of years, because I didn’t want there to be too many changes at once. But I did fill the place [I use the word "fill" advisedly] with things that were to *my* taste. And I have been moving those things every three or four years, ever since. With the last move, there was some paring-down. Now that I’m living in a small but perfect duplex, just big enough for me, I am sorting through my stuff, replacing the MDF bookcases with lovely ones from an antique shop I like. I just paid off the layaway on a fine armoire, which is probably the last furniture I will buy for as long as I live here. And I am giving things away, selling other items, organizing my craft supplies in a way that makes sense to *me*, if not to my neatnik older children. Who think they are the Stuff Police
I waited 45 years to begin to be in charge of my life and my stuff. The past 11+ years have been increasingly blissful. All of which is my long-winded way of saying, “Amen, sister!”
I love a good, long-winded Amen!
It really is about living in a way that pleases you. Good going, Lynn!
So, the t.v. is buried behind years of stuff collected, some by my mother, and other that we feared we should not get rid of in case, at some future point, we might not have enough money to re-acquire that which we already once owned but were foolhardy enough to give away. Oh, I could have watched the t.v., but it took too much work to get to it. Did I miss any-thing? Not one thing. The news didn’t matter – shocking! The weather happens whether you are prepared or not. And when the laptop went down and had to leave us for an extended period of recuperation, well, who knew that Ken and I could actually still carry on extended conversations about things. It was the best thing that ever happened in our house. This week a yard sale with a rule – if it doesn’t sell it’s not coming back in the house!!!! Have a nice compact stereo system – interested???
Thanks, but no. We get our music through our computers. A stereo system would be “one more thing”
Good luck with the yard sale!