Sentimental declutterers, and other oxymorons:

Three ideas for those of us who want to keep everything and nothing

Photo by JESHOOTS.COM on Unsplash

I’ve been hankering to declutter again, maybe because it’s spring, but also because I turn 41 soon. Birthdays are angsty, and all the turmoil in the world makes me want to throw away half of what I have and organize the rest.

What funny little mice we neat freaks are, scurrying to find dedicated places for each curd of cheese and sweep away the crumbs, as if controlling our corner of the world will stave off—what exactly? Pain? Everything bad? I see the silliness, and still, I get into these moods and start cleaning and discarding compulsively. David already glances at the trash occasionally for things he has left out that I might have thrown away. When I get in this mindset, he ups the frequency of his dumpster dives.

The trouble is, I’m also sentimental (see here and here). I have boxes full of mementos and every meaningful card I’ve received. And my sentimentality and drive to declutter can conflict. I’ve been known to throw away old photos or donate a shirt with special memories only to feel pangs of regret months later.

For those like me who have two competing tides rise within them at the idea of spring cleaning, here are three things to try:

1. When desperate and raging, stay away from the trash can. I haven’t tried this yet, but I’m writing it down so maybe I will.

2. Put things aside and out of sight for a while first. I’ve started to do this with my daughter Noa’s old toys. I put the ones I think she’s over in the basement to see if she notices before giving them away. (Being a queen bee of attachment, she almost always does notice, even weeks later. And then I find myself scrambling to the basement in search of that broken light she had over the holidays and now needs with a burning passion.)

3. “When the time comes to let it go, let it go,” as Mary Oliver says. Which does not mean rushing around the house with a donation bag. It helps to remember my father-in-law’s sports car that everyone thought was a midlife crisis but turned out not to be. He has loved that car every day, and he’s replaced it twice with the exact same model. It’s not the particular heap of metal that matters; it’s the experience of being behind the wheel. It’s the same with everything I feel sentimental about. If I focus on experiences, it becomes easier to separate the sentiment from the objects and to stop thinking of anything as “mine,” or at least as “mine” permanently.

I am in a number-1 kind of mood this week. Maybe it’s my 41st birthday approaching. Maybe it’s something in the air. But I’m not in a place to decide in a considered way whether the time has come to bade my old t shirt farewell with gratitude. So I make myself wait, stew a little, and take myself on a walk in the April wind.

Look for the next Creative Sort on Friday, April 18!