So much tidying

So over the last 9 days I have cleared out my room. That was no easy task (due to lazy-itus). And today I found myself clearing out our garage. Sooo much unused junk that my mum has collected over the past 50 years or so. I couldn’t throw it out. So it went in the loft. This is where I found myself wishing we had some sort of staircase to the loft (we live in a bungalow) or maybe just a less flimsy ladder would be good. The ladder that we do have however has often been referred to as a death trap. It wobbles in a scary way. So when climbing up with arms full of junk, dangerous would probably be an appropriate way of describing it. It was when I took up the third broken vacuum cleaner that I thought ‘we really need to throw some of this stuff out’.

My mum seems to have a throwing out stuff complex. By this I mean she won’t throw anything out. She hoards everything. I was trying to persuade her that she didn’t need to keep my baby things, since I had grown out of them now (about 15 years ago) but she seemed to want to keep them in case she had grandchildren. This is understandable - and they will also hold memories and sentimental value. But the only time anyone ever looks at the old junk and thinks ‘oh yeah, I remember doing that’ is when they are clearing out the space where the junk lives. I know this because I did a lot of that over the last week. The best one was finding artwork from when I was about 8. What I thought was a perfect replica of something at the time really, really wasn’t. I think I’m going off topic though. Things like artwork can be kept. Toys however cannot. What grandchild wants to play with some 50 year old toys? They want new toys surely… Besides I think they would be overwhelmed by the number of toys my mum/I have kept.

The solution to this throwing out nightmare I think is to say about everything:  ‘will I ever use this again? will I ever wear this again?’. Obviously you don’t need to say will I ever wear this again about things like cuddly toys, or golf clubs. But you know what I mean.

So to any junk hoarders out there that might just read this, then do as I said above and you might be able to get rid if stuff. Sell it at car boot sales etc. Although I have doubts that anyone would buy any of our stuff! :p

~ by darnip on July 21, 2008.