I've been slowly making my way along the path of de-cluttering. The living room is still pristine! There is something so wonderful (and encouraging) about seeing one room is such a good state of affairs that I hardly go in there. Partly, I don't want to mess it up; partly, I don't want to sit and relax in there until other rooms are just as good.
This has been a good time to start the process for me. I work best when I'm alone and unimpeded. My husband has been away for work for over a week (feels like a month!). It's been hard doing the single parent thing in his absence, but I have made good use of the time I do have alone. Last night, I started my part of the playroom (all my knitting and sewing stuff is in there). I thought I had lost my knitting mojo because I haven't been wanting to knit lately. I started digging through my stash to stimulate my mind for a new project...and then I realized I hadn't lost my knitting mojo at all. I am just up to my shoulders in need/desire-to-spring-clean. I reorganized all my knitting whatnots last night, including the piles o' stuff I relocated from the now-pristine living room. Fabulous! Today, it was on to the kiddie part of the playroom, and that's where I ran smack into my attachment disorder.
I am attached to things. I admit it. It's not nice or politically correct, but there you have it.
Going through the girls' books and toys to weed out what is no longer developmentally-appropriate made me wistful and a bit sad. We have so many beautiful, well-made toys...that we just really don't need anymore. I look in there and see all that stuff . I realize that the girls probably can't play with it because they may not even know what's there (and neither do we), and I find that appalling. I can identify and recognize these things...but when it's time to move things out, I still feel attached. I have little unproductive excuse-making thoughts like, "Wouldn't it be nice to have some baby toys on hand when people with littles visit?" or the classic "What about for the grandkiddies?" (My girls are 5 and 2! Grandkiddies?! Seriously?!) It was the same with the baby clothes. I still have to part with a big chunk of those, but it has been hard.
I don't have this problem with obvious junk. It can hit the bin as far as I care, though if it's useful, it's being donated. But I do struggle with beautiful wooden toys for infants and toddlers, high-quality and undamaged baby clothes...sigh. The psycho-babble wisdom would hold that I must still be attached to the girls being babies, but I don't think that's (completely) it. I was raised by a hoarder, and I struggle to part with thing that are "still good" even if they are unused. Nevertheless, I am doing it. I simply don't want to be surrounded by so much stuff anymore. But oh, the process is a bit of a challenge.
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