De-Cluttering: Saying good-bye to the old and HELLO to the new

Who among us hasn't read one of the hundreds of articles in the media about the importance of de-cluttering? In an age when everyone has accumulated too many possessions, it's the new trend to now get rid of those possessions. Ironic, isn't it?

My husband and I lived in one house for 21 of our 27 years of marriage. Prior to settling down in that house, we had an active life of traveling and studying. Our dream house (circa 1935) was roomy and, to compensate for the small closets, came complete with a huge attic and a large basement. My husband spent years installing shelving in almost every room of the house. At that time, we had no reason or need to think about de-cluttering. If we needed more storage space, he just built more shelves. Our attic was full of treasures including unique items of clothing that we had accumulated from our travels--the harem outfit tailor-made for me in Bangkok, Thailand; the jalaba that my husband bought when living in Lebanon; the lederhosen and dirndl kleid that we bought and wore to German festivals, both in the US and in Germany--just to name a few. I had wigs that were fashionable in the 60's and 70's. I had my prom dress; my wedding dress; my "going-away" dress; my first grown-up slinky black cocktail dress--you get the picture. We had hippie clothes; preppie clothes; and later we added baby clothes to our storage trunks. In addition to the clothing from all the phases of our lives, the book shelves in the attic were crammed with books covering every aspect of French and German language and literature, thanks to the years devoted to studying for Master's Degrees.

In the basement, wall-to-wall shelving was built into the tiny laundry room. On these shelves we stored a large collection of cookware, brassware, fondue pots, candlesticks, wine dispensers, dishes, cake platters, pie pans, cookie cutters, jello molds, Mason jars for canning, soup tureens, crock pots, rice cookers--all items that we had purchased or that had been handed down to us over the years as our parents had done their own de-cluttering. Don't even get me started on the work room and all my husband's tools. One of the funniest things anyone ever said to me was on the day of the "walk-through" when the new buyer of my house asked me, "Did your husband have a thing for shelving?" He had never seen so many built-in shelves in his life. Little did he know that he would be needing them as he and his wife and two young children began their life together. I just smiled and said nothing, letting him wait to discover for himself how families tend to accumulate "stuff" during our lives.

The best and most motivational time to de-clutter is when making a change of residence. The fewer belongings for the movers to move, the cheaper the move, right? I down-sized my residence in 2002. So, you're thinking, I got rid of most of those foreign items of clothing and those seldom-used pots and pans that were stored in the basement, right? Well, not exactly. I tried to sort through my possessions, but there were so many of them. And amidst my valiant attempt to give away books and clothing and kitchen ware, I found that there were things that I just couldn't bring myself to part with. These books and items of clothing represented important periods, even major turning-points, in my life. In a sense, they were part of me. To give them away was to take away part of who I am--or so I thought at the time.

Fortunately, the house I was moving to had a large unfinished basement, just the place for storage. All I needed were the shelves. And by then, I no longer had the great handy-man husband to build them. Even though I made my best efforts at sorting through my possessions, I still needed to purchase 8 units of read-made shelving at Lowe's (five shelves per unit) to line the walls of one half of my basement. I have lived in my house for seven years now and still have two moving boxes labeled Kitchenware that I have never opened. Is that pitiful or what?

Little by little, I am now going through my books, finding that I am ready to part with about half of the many editions of French masterpieces of literature that I read in graduate school as well as a good number of books I read in pursuit of my second Master's degree in education. I mean, do I really still need copies of School Law or Personnel Management? All of these give-away books have now been donated to the local library for their annual book sale. I have also managed to give a few of my nicer cocktail dresses to my daughter-in-law--but I'm still waiting for the right person and / or occasion to donate my dirndl.

Purging one's possessions is worthwhile not only for making a house a safer and neater place to live, it's also good for the soul. Divesting oneself of physical possessions leads to a higher level of "de-cluttering," i.e., a rethinking of priorities and how we want to spend our time, perhaps our most precious resource. De-cluttering is a symbolic way of moving on with our lives, and of saying "I still have lots of good things to happen to me and I am making space for the future." Michelle Singletary, financial columnist for the Washington Post wrote a review of the book by Gail Blanke, Throw Out Fifty Things: Clear the Clutter, Find Your Life. A brief overview of the books gives four basic rules to guide the reader in his/her "disengagement" process:

Rule One: If the item, memory, job or even person is weighing you down, get rid of it.

Rule Two: If the thing is not contributing something positive, let it go.

Rule Three: If it takes you a long time to decide whether something needs to be tossed, throw it out.

Rule Four: If you're afraid to throw out something, get rid of the fear.

If none of this sage advice from Gail Blanke helps you, just ask yourself "If I would die tomorrow, what would my children do with all that stuff that was so meaningful to me but that has no meaning to them?" They are eventually going to toss it or give it to Goodwill anyway. Why not help them out a little? Happy tossing!