SeeingRred
My basement is a place of horrors! Every inch filled with STUFF! My dear husband, M., and I literally had to make a winding path to manoeuver our way around. Stacks and stacks of literature — Martha Stewart mags (from when the internet was rather young and people still loved the feel of a good book), wedding planning books (I got married in 2000!), 20+ boxes of novels and textbooks from university way back in the day. M. has learned to work with me rather than against me…. Instead of buying the handsome modern steel desk he was longing to set up in his new home office 12 years ago when we first moved in, he used these dastardly boxes as the base of his desk and placed a piece of particle board as the top surface. Honestly, I feel extremely guilty watching as he descends each day into this domestic landfill and, every time I go down there to bring him a cup of tea or a snack, seeing him working those hard, long hours among all the chaos and clutter, my heart breaks. He has attempted many times to clear away areas for us to use, but somehow “the stuff” keeps creeping back into every nook and crevice! I know it’s not fair. But, until now, I didn’t know how to tackle it all.
Unless you are a pack rat, you wouldn’t understand. It’s not that I like it. It’s disgusting to me really. But, I’ve held on to it… tight. These are the dregs of my life. My mom’s old furnishings, dishware, and décor, taking up one large corner until it can be shipped to the somewhat abandoned, half-constructed family house she left for us. (This in itself is a horror story, perhaps to be told another day.) It feels wrong to get rid of it. I couldn’t. Besides our memories, it’s all that we have left of her. In addition, the collection of whimsical, shabby chic décor set aside from our previous near-century rustic cottage (which regretfully does not suit the modern design of our current home) is growing as I continue to move from room to room, relinquishing little pieces of my past. Or at least relocating them! Knowing that they will see life again one day in the caribbean sunshine gives me some solace.
10 years of teacher stuff — file cabinets and binders of teaching ideas and lessons, shelves of textbooks/resources/children’s books (Some in sets of 5! … bought at Scholastic book sales for my reading groups), toys/puzzles/board games/manipulatives, arts and crafts supplies/paper (every kind, some cut, ready to use for different activities!); even boxes of teacher examplars. Why do I keep all of these things? My mind has rationalized that it is imperative that I have them for that rainy day when I return to Teaching or my kids are having trouble with their school work. With vigor and stealth Super-Hero-Teacher-Mom will leap down the stairs into the dark, perilous pit, use my x-ray vision to scan the cityscape of plastic Rubbermaid and grab just the right handout or experiment to save my kids from FAILURE!!! Or, just as plausible, if we decide to throw caution to the wind and move our family of five to the other side of the world to live in the African savannah where I’ll live among the Bushmen and have to homeschool! All of these scenarios have made sense to me for a long time!
But, not anymore. In fairness, I have known for some time that I need to declutter. And, I have been. Really! For the past two years I have been donating every month or two to the Canadian Diabetes Association. I gave all of my kids’ clothes and toys away to friends/family when they had outgrown them (only to have to buy them all back again when my third son was born!). My small walk-in closet, shared with M. has been cleared out so many times that now it houses all of my clothes, except for one “Seasonal Clothes” container. This says a lot, I think, because it is the only space I have for my clothes, besides the one drawer in M’s dresser I borrowed (I opted to give mine up for the nursery). Last year, my brother-in-law, R, came for a vacation from England. He’d been abroad for 5 or 6 years, got married, had two kids. And, all the while, his stuff was in the other corner of our basement. I can’t describe the happiness I felt when, by the end of their marvelous 10-day visit with us, he had managed to go through all of his belongings (in actuality, it took him probably 2 days), and categorize them into Donate/Dump/Ship piles. I was truly inspired!
But, it’s the thought of moving to a new house and starting fresh, that has lit a fire under me and gotten me excited. Jus the thought of it made me dance and twirl. Then, I stopped dead in my tracks when it hit me, “I have to sell! Yikes, there is no way I can show it in this state! OMG, I don’t want to take all this junk to my new house. (I did that before, thinking I would eventually get it all sorted, and look where it has gotten me!) I have to do the work. I have to do it now. As hard as it is, I have to LET GO. This, I know, is the only way to rise from the rubbish.
Written September 15, 2015
