I have a complicated relationship with the objects that surround me. I don’t necessarily see the things themselves; instead, I see the stories attached to them. This makes me worry that if I get rid of the things, I’ll lose the stories, too. The result is that at any moment while attempting to declutter, I could step on a memory bomb and lose an entire day to guilt and nostalgia.
To help with this, I’ve started reading an excellent book by Matt Paxton called Keep the Memories, Lose the Stuff: Declutter, Downsize, and Move Forward with Your Life. I’m on Step 3, where Paxton talks about the emotional resonance of objects, and the guilt that can come with the idea of letting objects go. For me, the guilt is especially attached to items given to me as gifts, or that I’ve inherited from one of my parents.
Today I just want to share with you three passages that really stood out to me in my reading, and what they mean to me.
Yes, objects resonate with emotions for me. That’s why I still have so many stuffed animals. That’s why I still have my grandmother’s self-defence certificate, earned on her 80th birthday. That’s why I can’t part with things people have given to me, even if I don’t like the things — or the people.
After my mother died, my stepfather gave me her very expensive embroidery and quilting machine. I couldn’t even figure out how to turn it on, and I don’t think she could, either. It was too much machine for either one of us. A few months ago I gave the machine to one of my mom’s very talented quilting friends, and she knows how to make that machine sing. This is one of the best decisions I’ve ever made in my life!
This was one of my mother’s problems too, and I’m prone to it. I don’t want to get rid of my stuff, I want to STORE IT! And have it look very neat and proper while I have no idea where any of it is, because I can’t see it anymore. In the last couple of years of my mother’s life, whenever I phoned her she’d tell me she was sorting. Basically, she was moving fabric from one bucket to another, and never actually sewing anything. She seemed to really enjoy doing this, but I don’t want sorting to become my life.
You know what’s funny? I’ve just realized that I’ve written about this sort of thing before. Like David Bowie sang, I’m always crashing in the same car. Which is what this whole blog is about, I guess. You can read that earlier revelation in my blog post about The Stories.
