Editing your life
Post by Karen Charlton
My husband and I are mutually inclined to keep things ‘just in case’: empty shoe boxes, twine, gate latches, timber off-cuts. Things we keep tend to be measured up according to their utility; if it’s useful or could one day be useful, we keep it. Then we spend our days navigating around the stuff that might be useful.
If there should ever be a box, button or hardware shortage, we’re your people. Mr Karen has 6 ladders. Twelve measuring tapes. Windows and doors of various sizes. A crate full of door knobs, hooks and hinges. His back shed is like a hardware store of second-hand goods. And when the craft-Armageddon arrives, I’m your girl, armed with paints, brushes, inks, crayons, pastels, and pencils. Would you care to borrow one of my 11 pairs of scissors?
Then there’s the personal effects; locks of hair (my own and my children’s), christmas cards dating back to grade 2, crude pictures drawn by girlfriends in high school, and notes jotted on fading lemon yellow Post-it notes. You know, Post-its being that stationary that was made to be used and tossed?
In my hoarding there’s a refusal to let go. If you asked me, I couldn’t tell you what it was I was holding on to. Perhaps I’m holding on to yesterday because tomorrow is a stranger to me.
If I were to resolve to do anything in particular in 2013, it would be to edit. Take out my scissors and cut back the unnecessary and overgrown elements in my life. I’d leave snippets of true beauty: slithers of insight: reveal moments of simple happiness.
Editing allows clarity. Cutting away things that don’t matter says you know where you’re headed, you know what counts and what is merely peripheral. Perhaps I want clarity and direction most of all.
What about you? What do you keep and refuse to throw away? Or do you take a ‘kill your darlings’ approach to your material life?
18 Responses to “Editing your life”
I was a hoarder until we started shifting houses frequently, then I had to reluctantly let go of my odds and ends. However I’ve managed to stubbornly cling on to a few school books and diaries and some fading stickers
Absolutely! I think it’s our right as home dwelling people to have personal effects. It’s the shoe boxes and twine in it’s various colours and types that will one day undo me …
LOL we are from opposite ends of the tracks aren’t we Karen!
I am a compulsive editor. I don’t care if something could potentially be useful in the future … if it’s not useful NOW … it’s gone.
I just did a giant ‘de-clutter’ on the weekend in case we need to sell our house in a couple weeks’ time and I was a bit bemused at how little there was to actually de-clutter!
I am not sure what this says about me. My in-laws think I am terribly unsentimental but this isn’t true at all. But I think I keep all my memories in my head as opposed to in things
Part of the problem may lie in our house – the house we call our ‘forever house’. Forever doesn’t have the appeal that it used to, now that we’re 9 years on.
I was just driving around in my air con this arvo and listening to a psychologist who did research into the after-effects of living through a bushfire. The research explored the feelings of being dispossessed after your home is lost in a fire and how for many people the complicated grief they experience because of that loss can be worse than losing a family member. They said that people derive their sense of identity from their home and more importantly the possessions that surround them – that all the ‘stuff’ creates memories and thoughts and opportunities to remember. As a good little narrative therapist I came home and googled some more to read up on it – its OK to want the stuff we have around us, not everything has to have an immediate purpose or function. There is meaning in it all…I have boxes of stuff, one for each decade, one for each child, one for each relationship and then a miscellaneous one.
I love them all even though at the end of the day they mean nothing. Dont edit too much x
Maybe I just need a better filing system for the stuff? Post-it notes under P, and so on. I will never be a minimalist
There’s nothing like a good chuck out. It makes you feel so much lighter.
Hi Karen,
I’m definitely more of a kill my darlings kind of gel! I keep the things that touch me and ditch the rest. Keeps me feeling liberated, clutter stresses me somehow. Very cut-throat I know!
I am sentimental, but a real minimalist. So while I throw away any items that I haven’t used or worn in the last six months, I do have boxes filled with every journal, card or personal letter I have ever received. I kept all of my books from when I was a little girl, which 30 years on my daughter adores reading. I guess we all have our own way of editing our life. I find clutter weighs me down in every possible way, so I just stick to my sentimental minimal ways!
Edit is a bloody good word for all things, Karen. I did some serious editing a couple of years ago and to this day I deeply regret throwing out some of the stuff I threw away and yet… x
I like that tomorrow is a stranger. Something new. Something fresh. I only keep stuff that I know I can’t live without. No cards. No post its. All the snippets of baby hair are neatly tucked into their baby books. That is why I blog. No mess. Just memories.
I know the feeling! There’s so much in my life that needs editing. It’s funny, I wrote a similar post last year. http://heartmama.net/2012/08/01/edits-i-need-to-make/
I’m a hoarder too. Just because I’m so damn sentimental. No practicality in it at all! You’ve inspired me to do a bit of editing. I love what you said: “I’d leave snippets of true beauty: slithers of insight: reveal moments of simple happiness.” – I will endeavour to do this too.
Love this one! It’s hard to let go of some things. I, too, am trying to edit this year.
This is me to a T. I was actually just thinking about this last night, as I fought with the plastic and paper bags taking over the trash closet. I mean, I might need them. Or if I don’t need them, shouldn’t I recycle them? That’s just one small aspect of the house. I need to do better this year!
Oh, I love it. You two were made for each other! We move pretty frequently, so I don’t tend to hold onto too much, but both my husband and I have a box (okay, mine is more like a blanket box) where our memorabilia is stored. That’s all we have. And I’ve created one each for my lads. It has everything we wish to remember, and our photos. LOTS of photos.
Editing is fun when there’s time. But I’d rather make time to go through that stuff and just dream about the past. Rather than getting rid of it all.
Happy new year Karen! x
I used to hold on to more “stuff” and always had a spare button coat, etc. but when it fell off I could never find it when I needed it. Now I keep a “donation bag” and it makes me feel good to know that someone else will put it to good use.
Oh, and during this remodeling process, I’ve realized how little “stuff” we actually need!