DE-CLUTTERING, A NECESSARY EVIL?
“Waste not, want not” was my mother’s motto and she lived by
it the whole of her life. Maybe it was because she lived through the great
depression of the 1930’s and World War 2, that she would use and re-use, save
and squirrel away stuff. Our house was never untidy, because most of the
hoarded items were well out of sight.
I should have learned my lesson after my dear mother died
about 20 years ago and my sister and I had to clear out her house. To say it
was a nightmare was an understatement. It took weeks. My mother had kept
receipts from the 1940’s, even her World War 2 ration book. And speaking of
books, she had hundreds of them. Then there were the ornaments, pretty little
knick-knacks that reposed on every shelf or level surface in the house. Boxes
of china. Well, you get the idea.
Now you would think that after all this trauma and angst, I
would have dashed home and gone through my own cupboards. I didn’t, but I did take a lot of my mother’s
stuff with me. Well, how could I let it
go? All those little treasures.
My mother-in-law passed away, same story, I kept a lot of
her things too. I was a hoarder. It came
as naturally as breathing or eating.
Well friends, retribution did come. The youngest of our sons
finally left home, so hubby and I decided it was time to downsize. We bought a
smaller house, and put our larger house on the market. “We’ve got a lot of
stuff here, we’ll have to get rid of it,” hubby says.
Over my dead body.
“No, we won’t do anything rash,” I said, “there’s plenty of time to work out
what we want to keep.”
A week before the auction of our house, my husband had to
have heart by-pass surgery, so I had to go on with the sale alone. After the
auction and hubby’s successful operation, I had to start packing, because when
he came home he couldn’t do anything for eight weeks. I really hit the panic
button because we had a short settlement. Forty days to clear out all our
stuff, that of my mother and mother-in-law (things I had kept, and shouldn’t
have). Well, it was a nightmare. I did most of it on my own. I don’t know how many trips I made to donate
all these “treasures” to the second hand thrift shop (we call them Op shops
here in Australia
It was terrible. I cried because I had to give away my ‘treasures,
mum’s treasures and my mother in-law’s treasures’. Worse still, was the time it
took to pack them and deliver them to the Op shop.
With the clock ticking, I had to be ruthless – and I was.
If you are even contemplating moving house, start to get rid
of your surplus stuff early. In fact,
don’t collect it in the first place. A
lady once told me that if she didn’t wear a dress for a year, she was probably
never going to wear it again, and she got rid of it. Smart lady. Wish I had
such courage. I still cling to my
favourite dresses, hey I might lose weight and they will fit me again???
The moral of this story is - don’t hoard. De-clutter as much as possible,
because one day you will have to sort
it out, or your children will have to
sort it out.
The same goes for your writing. Be ruthless. If the manuscript you have expended
blood, sweat and tears over isn’t working, discard it. Temporarily cast it into your bottom drawer
is what I mean. Don’t destroy it, because you might be able to resurrect it at
a later date. Start on something fresh
and new. Once you get your writing tastebuds tingling again with a new premise,
a feisty heroine and a spunky hero, the words will start flowing until they
become a torrent.
Never give up. It is a steep climb to the top of the
publishing mountain, but oh what a view once you get there.
Margaret writes spicy historical romance set in Australia
Explosive results and tragedy follow Jo Saunders and Luke Campton when they cross the fine line dividing love and hate.
2 comments:
Oh Margaret, I laughed so hard in reading this post, we must be related!
The blessings of finding a major (and I do mean Major) mold invasion in my basement is Everything had to come out. At that time I'd been in my house around 33 years and had 'treasures' from my Mom's estate, my Aunt's estate, and my brother's estate as well as my own accumulation from highschool (copies of my high school newspaper when I was editor), college, etc.
Well, with everything piled out on the back decks, I did go through everything...those receipts from 40years ago were tossed instead of cleaned up and saved. It isn't that I got rid of everything...just couldn't do that. But, everything (well, almost everything) is organized, labeled, and up on shelves that are at least 12 inches away from the walls. I've a bin with my parent's things and another with my brother's. Mostly I have furniture from my Aunt's estate and that I'm using.
This last year I went through the upper house and cleaned out so much. I did get rid of those dresses from high school and college accepting I'll never have a 20 inch waist again And (the other myth) I'll cut them up and make a memory quilt.
I have told my granddaughters that when I die, they need to go through what is left because there are some things packed away that have value. I'm not saying I won't ever go through things again, but not any time soon!
So glad you've survived the trauma of decluttering decades of your life!
It's so easy to accumulate 'stuff' when you live in a house for a long time. When my husband was in the Coast Guard, we moved every two years.The silver lining was that we had a garage sale every two years and donated things to charity.
Once we settled into a house for twenty years, things just accumulated.
Good writing analogy!
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