Taking my medicine, I humbly admit I am a pack rat. I keep too many things that, when I hold them in my hand, bring back positive memories. It's the little things that get me, a cute little toy that made my kids laugh when they were little, or a cheep plastic object that was part of a silly story that we would frequently revisit, or a hand written note, which may make no sense to me now, but I can see a piece of a loved on in it...some how. So I keep things, I keep things because they tell me stories. I keep things much to the frustration of my new husband. For the three months before our marriage I was tasked with "no longer keeping things". This was my new job. My husband to be was a self proclaimed organizational expert, and could assist me with this project: "did I know it existed before I opened that cupboard?" no? "Throw it out!" "have I worn it in the last year?" nah, "good will it", "Am I already saving another version of this?" yes...5....(sheepishly she said) "GET RID OF IT!"And I did, I cleaned out two full bedrooms a family room, 1/half of my bedroom, and I graciously surrender that space to my new husband. At 50 years old, this was not an easy task. Much had been cherished and held in the highest regard as a "memory". But out of love, and respect, I sifted and tossed, and mourned my past life, to make room for my new life. Many tears were shed in this journey, but my husband to be assured me that my new life with him, one that would be clutter free, just like him, would be far richer than my life of hoarding. So I did it, I clensed! I am pure, and I have made room for new love in my life and made room for my new love of my life.
The day came for him to finally move into the spaces in my home for which I made room for him. He packed up his house, and day by day moved box after box, bag after bag, books, glasses, plates, sheets, papers, upon papers, tupperware lid tops, (no bottoms) adaptors with no phone, CD cases with no CDs, papers, cards, bowls,....so many bowls, why all these bowls...? Plants in pots, pots without plants, old bikes, old bedspreads, games from his grown daughters youth...(hungry, hungry hippos? really?) These all came over to fill in the spaces from which I had cleared all my precious hording memories.
I asked him...honey, I thought you said you weren't a hoarder....I'm not, I'm a pack rat, which is much better.
"We are all of us obliged, if we are to make reality endurable, to nurse a few little follies in ourselves."
—
Marcel Proust 