Clearing Away the Clutter and Chaos

In the beginning of the year, I began the simplification and clearing out of my house yet again. A couple years back, I read Marie Kondo’s book The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up . I adopted a few of her storing techniques but never went all through the house. In January,I start stripping my life of my past chaos and applying more of her techniques to embrace the magic.

I got new towels for Christmas so in January, I cleaned out my linen closet and the old ones went to the SPCA. The chaos of too much stuff is overwhelming. I begin to feel scattered and bad that I can’t find what I need. I’ve cleared closets, drawers, my craft room, Fiona’s toys, and the refrigerator.
I must say my inner Virgo is happy to see all that space.

So this weekend, under the auspices of continuing the renovation of our garage into a band practice space for our son, we cleared out the garage and basement. Our basement is unfinished and very dirty but we cleansed our souls of all our past endeavors and failures. I let go of everything which was like letting go of stories that no longer defined who I am.

Today we took the lot of it to a reuse it store. As they let us know several times they were being kind to take a lot of my stuff, I was feeling the grief around letting go. The few items that were more than “gently used”, I brought back home to await the next purge to the local thrift store opening this Friday. Yay a Goodwill in my town!

Letting go takes energy, both mental and physical. But once the decision is made it’s much easier. Can I use it right now? Does it serve me? Does it give me joy? Is it keeping from seeing the things that do serve me and give me joy? Mark refused to let go of the Coleman cooler that his family took on camping trips when he was. I have a tray of metal slide holders full of slides that I’m still sure will make a cool art installation, perhaps a mobile?

Sometimes we have to just wait for things to become obsolete before we can let them go. Sometimes we need to rend them from our spaces for our own good. But clutter has never proven to be good for mental clarity. And in fact, making decisions about our stuff in our lives actually increases our self-trust.

It’s Springtime, typically a time to clear, clean, and reassess our Feng Shui. I guarantee that if you are in need of a pick me up, decluttering is one of the first steps I would suggest to clear your mind and begin again.

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