De-Clutter Tips for Volume 3,  June 2006

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 - De-cluttering tips

Picking up and leaving really addresses the issue of clutter.  When my husband and I decided to leave our Ontario life for a new one on the west coast, we were overwhelmed by the sudden realization of how much ‘stuff’ we actually had.  After living together for four years, we had accumulated a plethora of knickknacks, towels, dishes and furniture that we hardly remembered wanting in the first place.  We started the agonizing process of determining what was coming with us and what was staying put. 

At first we toyed with the idea of actually storing all of our furniture so that we could ship it out west once we were settled.  That notion soon fizzled as we realized the mounting costs of storing and shipping.  It seemed as though we couldn’t let any of it go; how did we know what we would want in our new home?  It was then that we knew we had to get real, we wouldn’t want to have all the same furniture in our new life.  A new life, called for new stuff, and the feeling of home that we got from our belongings now, wouldn’t necessarily resonate later.  So we made up a rule to help us sift through our  belongings, ‘if you don’t love it and you don’t need it, then get rid of it’.  With that in mind, we sold all of our furniture in the paper, we had a huge yard sale for pots and pans and gadgets and we donated the rest to Goodwill.  Then when it was time to leave, we loaded our truck from top to bottom with crates of what we decided were our dearest possessions.  And we did end up shipping five boxes by bus.

The interesting thing was that our de-cluttering process did become easier as the time went on.  Initially there were things that I thought really defined who I was and where I had been.  Things that I got as gifts, things I had picked up in my travels.  But I came to realize that these things do not define me and in reality they started to weigh me down.  Knowing that, I was able to let go of heirloom china, which never really suited me, and teddy bears I had since I was a child but that I no longer needed for security.  And the last night we spent in our apartment, we had only our phone and a mattress on the living room floor.  Having that spaciousness surround us, stark white walls looming over us, was not as alarming as I thought it would be.  In fact that night I fell into a wonderful, clutter-less sleep.

And now, getting sorted in our new place, in our new life on the west coast we are starting to go through our crates.  There are still moments when I pluck out some little thing from a box and try to remember why this was important to me a month ago.  De-cluttering will remain an ongoing process.  Now I just need to master the art of living simply and not acquiring so much to begin with!