Day in the Life

Clearing the Clutter

Since the pandemic, my home has become not only my residence, but my office and my staging warehouse. The dining area is piled not with dishes of tasty meals but rather towers of files and paper clutter. My living room is filled with extra lamps, pillows, and boxes of decorative pieces for staging that are destined for second floor storage but remain at the foot of the stairs. My basement is full of furnishings and boxes of crafts and other hobby related items, dishes and catering equipment, and books that found plenty of space in my previous 19 room Federal but not my current 2 bedroom duplex. 

A study published in "Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin," found that women who described their living spaces as cluttered or full of unfinished projects were more likely to be fatigued and depressed than women who described their homes as restful and restorative. To the brain, clutter represents unfinished business and this lack of completeness can be highly stressful for some people, like myself. This fact is especially true when people have significant concerns pressing in on their lives. Again, like myself. In some ways, clutter and mess is linked to negative emotions like confusion, tension, and irritability while an organized home tends to produce more positive emotions like calmness and a sense of well-being. 

Yes, clutter can create more stress and anxiety, but by cleaning, organizing, and reducing the clutter, people are able to take control of their environment and create a more relaxing environment that helps them focus better on the more pressing issues in their lives. Wherever you declutter (it could be a space, a room, or your entire house), you will need a plan before you get started. If you don't plan just a little, then you will feel more overwhelmed because you won't really know what you're doing or what your goal is. When decluttering, it's all too easy to be afraid of making the wrong decision. What if we get rid of something that we think is clutter right now, but that we find we actually DO need later on? And where will you take all the clutter you are removing? 

This year, I made the decision it was time to take back my home. I made a plan and have been slowly but consistently working towards one goal – to have my home be a residence, not a business, and more importantly be a place that reflects the reality of my life today. I began with my kitchen. Every cabinet and drawer was emptied and each item reviewed… scrutinized, for its functionality and purpose. That’s when you realize just how many duplicate vegetable peelers you own, the number of very specific-use utensils that take up too much real estate in your limited kitchen space, and how many odds n’ ends fill up the junk drawer. Reality check is that I am no longer catering large events and even family gatherings have downsized, so why do I need all of this stuff? I filled up 2 totes from the kitchen purge, and off they went to Goodwill. 

My next project was the basement but before I could make any progress, I needed a temporary place to be able to go through each and every container to make my disposition decisions. I rented a Pod to serve as a temporary room protected from the elements to spread out my stuff. I made the usual piles of TOSS, KEEP, DONATE or SELL. I wanted to be purposeful about anything I was donating and making sure the items all went to the best homes. 

• Building supplies to Habitat for Humanity ReStore 

• 3 boxes of Christmas ribbons to First Parish Church for Christmas Craft Fair & Wreath Sale 

• Pet supplies to pet shelter - Feral Felines 

• Art supplies to local schools 

• Cans of used paint to the local Girl Scout Troop Recycling Paint event 

• More cans of used paint to PaintCare, a nonprofit organization 

• 5 boxes of confidential paperwork to WGME shredding event 

• And finally …. 4 full carloads to Goodwill Donation Center 

Now for the fun part. I will be having a gigantic lawn sale over Memorial Weekend, and there is so much to sell. There are vintage items, tons of collectibles that my daughter does not want to inherit, furniture, art work, and items all from an earlier lifetime that realistically won’t be part of my future. The decision to sell these treasures and to close chapters of my life was hard but I already feel a sense of weight being lifted. 

My daughter is the reason that I made the decision to purge. She recently shared with me these words “Mom heaven forbid anything should happen to you, but please don’t leave me to deal with all of this. I don’t need anything, nor want anything. Please make it go away now.”  She’s not wrong. I felt the same with my mother. I have heard these words many times. They are words echoed by my clients’ families when we are trying to rid their homes of the fancy dish sets, the large oak furniture pieces, the lacey tablecloths and napkins that were always too good to use. Folks always wait to do this type of cleaning because it is stressful and time consuming. I have discovered that yes, it has been hard work, but a cleaner basement and home has provided me with a sense of peace and freedom from the stress. Now I still have all my staging pieces, but they are in their proper storage places, organized, and not in my living room. Now the last space to clean is my bedroom and closet… but I’ll save that project for another day.