Talking to various members of my family this year, it soon became obvious that we’d all reached the same conclusion entirely independently of each other. We have enough ‘stuff’. It’s a realisation that’s probably been growing on us all for a while: in my family, we hardly ever give or throw anything away. For years we’ve been promising to ‘sort the house out’ and get rid of clutter. We’ve also all been making an effort to prioritise the environment and optimise what we do for charity and for other people recently. So perhaps deciding this year that none of us wanted anything for Christmas or birthdays that we couldn’t eat, use up or otherwise put to an immediate practical use wasn’t actually the surprise it seemed at first.
Of course, staying at peak stuff isn’t really sustainable either. I have things I’ve bought for the joy of buying them and have never looked at again. I have things I love but haven’t seen in years because they’re buried somewhere. This is really silly, I know. I need to not only stop acquiring so much new stuff but down size what I already have. Not only will it mean getting more enjoyment out of what I own but also means I can feel less guilty next time I find something that I can’t help but buy.
Simple, right? Well, not so much. I am a very sentimental person: I attach a huge significance to objects. They’re living embodiments of good memories, either of the people who gave them to me or of the occasion on which I got, wore or used them. I’m the girl who is so afraid of using up a particular toiletry because ‘I’ll never smell this scent again once I do’ that I keep it for years until it goes off and ruins itself anyway. I’m also very guilty of the ‘but this might come in useful’ philosophy. This makes downsizing very difficult for me and means I never actually want to get started. There’s also the practical difficulty of getting rid of stuff. While a lot of it can be donated to charity and I’m more than delighted to do it, some of it can’t. I feel guilty for throwing out the broken, worn or otherwise non-reusable things. They might as well stay cluttering my house than lying in landfill, poisoning the environment.
So, how to move past all this and actually make a dent in the drifts of stuff? I’m not sure. All I can do is try to remind myself that objects aren’t memories and if I can go for years without looking at something or using it, then it’s probably okay to let it go. I also have to begin to draw a line between the actually meaningful and not: the stuff that represents memories, rather than the stuff that simply makes me remember. The same goes for potentially useful things. If I haven’t used it by now, chances are good that I won’t. Besides, it could be actually useful for someone else, rather than potentially useful for me. I also remind myself that nobody is making me give up stuff I love. It’s okay to keep some of it.
So, I’m making gradual progress through the crates, boxes and cupboards. Slow and steady wins the race. As with a lot of things in life, decluttering is a process and also one that doesn’t have to be all or nothing.