Cleaning & Memories

Since August, we have decluttered and cleaned most of our house.  I have gone through my own closet and drawers, Jeff his, I went through the kids room, I went through the bathroom, the book shelve area (aka “the library”), parts of the kitchen and then also a large portion of our storage unit as well.  Mostly becuase we had been remodeling the house and these things needed to be done.  Partly because it feels good to declutter.  When we finally put the bedrooms back with the bare minimum I liked the sparseness and openness of the room.  Since then I have organized, tagged and take kids items to the consignment sale I participate in.  It is always a bit hard to let go of the kids items and cute clothes.  For one they hold a lot of memories and two, it signals our decision (on most days) to be done having kids.  But there are a few items that hit me harder than others.  The items that I remember my mom purchased for October and the memories of the kids either wearing it or playing with it is not the driving emotional pull but rather it’s the memory of a different time and place.  A time and place where my parents lived in Michigan in the house that my dad built, a time when they could afford to buy their first grandchildren clothes and toys, a time they could come to visit….a time and place when my dad was here with us.  Some of the items I held onto longer than the kids ever played with them, a soft cover musical sesame street book for instance or stained long-sleeve onsie with matching pull-on purple pants.  As I organized for this consignment sale, I tried to let go and remember that the item itself wasn’t the memory and I should sell it.  I remember the show on TLC “Clean Sweep” with the folks having homes overflowing with stuff because they held onto stuff that reminded them of other things.  The host would always confront the homeowner asking if getting rid of the item was getting rid of the memory…which of course it wasn’t it.  And to look at the cost – sometimes actual dollars, sometimes emotional – of keeping stuff/clutter in your home.  I would often think of this when I was decluttering and cleaning and making a conscious effort to reduce our clutter.  If an item held an emotional attachment because I could remember this as a favorite toy or favorite outfit of mine and I could picture them in it or playing with it, I was more likely to keep it.  But if the item was simply a vehicle for my memory, I tried to let it go.  At the consignment sale last week, I sold the Sesame Street Soft Cover “Let’s Make Music” book that October got as baby from my mom.  It was a cute book, she did play with it but really that wasn’t why I held onto the book for so long.  And really, was I going to hold onto this book until I have grandchildren?  I’m sure it’d be ratty and no longer work.  I put it in the sale, it sold and I when I saw it sold, I instantly wished I had it back. Yet at the same time, I would have left it in storage and never remembered I had it while the emotional (and actual) cost of accumulating boxes of random stuff would have grown.  But today, I’ll admit I am a little sad to have sold it and a little glad that the old stained purple onsie outfit wasn’t fit for selling.