I got an awesome comment over the weekend from Cathi. She said:
I have some of my mother’s clothing and all of her jewlery. It doesn’t take up alot of physical space, but it takes up a LOT of emotional space. My plan is to make some sort of craft object (jewlery piece, artwork, something) for neices and a nephew to pass my mother’s stuff along. But…when? how? and mostly, will it be appreciated? Certainly not like I appreciate it. sigh. Am I wasting my time and emotion? It certainly cheapens my mother’s memory to just toss it all. That’s the bottom line to emotional attachments….to just give it to charity or worse, garbage…is diminishing the respect of the memory of what that person held dear.
I wanted to address her concerns in the comment, and help her and others like her sort through the emotional (or lack there of) to these items.
Just so you all know, I’ve been there. I was VERY close to my grandmother growing up, and when she passed away, she left me everything she owned. It wasn’t much, and most of it was very much sentimental value. When we were packing up here place, I thought I was doing well with the whole eliminating clutter, because for years there were things I couldn’t imagine why she was keeping. I got rid of those things, because they held no story to me. Once I got everything home, which included plenty of furniture and other items, there was nowhere to go with much of it. I had boxes of stuff that never got opened. I had furniture that literally never got used. It was kinda crazy, but I had a really hard time letting it go, because I thought to myself - “She left it all to me, if I don’t love it, who will?” Well, the deal is, that there ARE other people who will love these items. Not necessarily because they held any true meaning to you or even them, but because they might be useful in their homes.
The first thing I would do (and I did it myself) is contact any relatives that you have that knew your loved one. See if anyone is interested in any of the things you don’t want. It will make you feel much better once those items are gone, and it is then on the other person (who hopefully won’t come reading my blog at some point LOL) what they decide to do with it. The clutter you were holding onto is gone. But of course you are going to be left with items, because not everyone wants everything, and some people might not want anything.
At this point, you need to sort through things. Are you honestly going to wear any clothing that you have received? If you haven’t worn in in the past year or more, it really should go. Perhaps keep a piece of two, and make plans to do something with it. Here is an idea I took. When my father passed away my senior year of high school, I bought a special dress for that day, and never wore it again to anything. Yes, I still have that dress and I am 35 years old. Recently, a friend of mine told me she could take the fabric from the dress and make either a small blanket or throw pillow. Though the black dress won’t match much of my decor, I am eager to have it turned into a throw pillow, as it has some fancy lace on it and I think it will be very pretty. I plan to do the same thing with a select few pieces of baby clothing from my kids. I might do those in a quilt style. See if there is something you can do with any of the clothing you would like to keep, and then look into having it done. This will help and allow you to save a piece of two without all the clutter.
Jewelry is a bit trickier. First, if it is valuable at all, I would hold onto it, if you can. If you don’t care about sentimental or money value, I say offer it to relatives, friends and what they don’t take you could either have remade into something else that you will wear, or give it away/donate it, etc. My friend works at an assisted living home and I know that the ladies there would love to be able to have things like that. So keep that in mind as an option. If you honestly cannot part with it, then let me suggest that you purchase some form of storage for it, and put it away so its not out and in your way. Revisit it in a couple of years and see how you feel then. Sometimes it gets easier to part with the more time goes by.
I have to disagree entirely with your last point:
It certainly cheapens my mother’s memory to just toss it all. That’s the bottom line to emotional attachments….to just give it to charity or worse, garbage…is diminishing the respect of the memory of what that person held dear.
This is simply not true. In fact, you might be surprised but I know people who have actually asked their loved ones what they expect after they are gone. Most people realize that what they loved and held dear in life, are not the same things that other people will love and hold dear. Your mother’s memory is inside of you and lives on through you, not through things. It is not taking away respect from them at all. Do you think your mother never received something or things in her life that she didn’t part with? She wasn’t being disrespectful, she was getting rid of something she neither wanted nor needed. This is not to say that you don’t need or want your mother. Those things are NOT your mother, they are only material items that manifest strong emotions when you view them. Eliminating them will not speak any less of how you feel for your mother, nor how much you loved her, nor how much you miss her. Her memory will continue to live on - words speak so much stronger than items. Because someday you won’t be here anymore to tell the stories of what they meant to you, which means they will still be what they are now - material items that are in someones way. Take pictures of some of your favorite items, journal about what they meant to your mother, or the feeling they evoked in you. Put together the pages in some form of a scrapbook, and someday that can be passed one. It will be treasured MUCH more than the items.
Best wishes to you on your endeavor to clean out your stuff. It is hard, and I know that. I have been there and lugged my grandmother’s stuff around for 10 years before I knew I had to release it. The same with many memento’s my mother gave me that were my dad’s. It is hard, there is no doubt about it, but if its in your way, and you don’t want it, remember that it is nothing more than a material item and that memories live on regardless of the items that still remain.
I know that this blog is a clutter control blog, but most of you also know I am a crafter. After browsing blogs all weekend and then again this morning, I decided I wanted to offer you some cute ideas for Christmas that I have seen on others blogs. So, if you are still in need of a last minute Christmas gift idea, check out:
Earlier, I told you I wanted to share the story of the lady with all the school work and artwork for her one child. Her daughter was entering 6th grade in middle school, and she had kept everything stemming back from Kindergarten. She had a bit of organization, in that each year had its own box, but that is where it ended. Six boxes, crammed full of all types of papers, projects and 3 dimensional art. It was overwhelming to say the least, for both her and I.
Yesterday, I talked about Procrastination vs. Organization and how the two simply do not go hand in hand. I referred to procrastination as one of the largest problems with getting organized and dealing with clutter. However, there is another thing that often stands in the way of reducing clutter and getting your life more organized. Guess what that is?
One of the most common reasons people have trouble staying organized, is actually procrastinating. Sure, there are many other reasons too, but if you can hurdle the procrastination battle, you are probably more than 50% further towards conquering the problem.
