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Clearing a Space
Mar. 5th, 2011 04:17 pmYou've seen those news stories and specials about people who hoard, right? Like, you go into their houses and there is nowhere to stand because there is so much junk and garbage stacked all over the place. Well, Thursday's CSI was about a lady who hoards all kinds of crap and they find a bunch of dead bodies in the house - it was pretty gross (but anything for more Nick Stokes love, right?) I was bored and started watching it - it was really interesting. Hard to follow, but it got me going.
After I finished watching, I had a sudden urge to clean out some of my crap. This actually started last week when my dad announced he was going to sell the house he inherited from his parents that we'd just been using as a storage facility (more or less). I still had some stuff there and I actually ended up throwing about half of it out (I didn't find any dead human bodies, but there were some other little creatures nestled in some of those boxes. Ew). The fascinating thing is that some of that stuff I could not bear to part with four or five years ago. Maybe I'm more objective now or I'm so far separated from it (or I've been living in small spaces for so long) that now, I can take whole cardboard boxes full of sentimental stuff and unceremoniously dump it in the trash.
It's very therapeutic, I've found. Sort of like paying off debt - it's like my attachment to this stuff was an overdue debt that seriously needed to be paid so I could move on, but I couldn't do it for whatever reason. But now I don't feel like I owe anybody anything so I can in good conscious throw it out (this was stuff like pictures and newspaper clipping and toys that I thought I'd want when I'm older... well - I really don't want any of it).
Some of the stuff I kept - it was still in good condition and I wanted it. But it's just nice to clear out bad memories from the past. Even better when you can pack up some of that stuff and chuck it in the burning barrel (which is what I did today with the stuff out of my closet). Now I feel like I have room for things that I actually want to keep around - not the crap I've been just shifting around so I can deal with it "later." Well, it's later. And it's gone. And I feel great about it.
After I finished watching, I had a sudden urge to clean out some of my crap. This actually started last week when my dad announced he was going to sell the house he inherited from his parents that we'd just been using as a storage facility (more or less). I still had some stuff there and I actually ended up throwing about half of it out (I didn't find any dead human bodies, but there were some other little creatures nestled in some of those boxes. Ew). The fascinating thing is that some of that stuff I could not bear to part with four or five years ago. Maybe I'm more objective now or I'm so far separated from it (or I've been living in small spaces for so long) that now, I can take whole cardboard boxes full of sentimental stuff and unceremoniously dump it in the trash.
It's very therapeutic, I've found. Sort of like paying off debt - it's like my attachment to this stuff was an overdue debt that seriously needed to be paid so I could move on, but I couldn't do it for whatever reason. But now I don't feel like I owe anybody anything so I can in good conscious throw it out (this was stuff like pictures and newspaper clipping and toys that I thought I'd want when I'm older... well - I really don't want any of it).
Some of the stuff I kept - it was still in good condition and I wanted it. But it's just nice to clear out bad memories from the past. Even better when you can pack up some of that stuff and chuck it in the burning barrel (which is what I did today with the stuff out of my closet). Now I feel like I have room for things that I actually want to keep around - not the crap I've been just shifting around so I can deal with it "later." Well, it's later. And it's gone. And I feel great about it.
