Attachment to "Things"

I have a fear of becoming a hoarder. I have in the past had corners in my house that I couldn't tell you what was in them. They had a tendency to creep and grow outward and consume more space in my already limited home. I had many of these corners, so many that I ran out of corners and the creep would go alongside walls and eventually meet up with another corner.

Unlike a hoarder, I did not seem to have an emotional attachment to these things, I just didn't know what to do with them. I would go on binges of de-cluttering and I'd get rid of the paper goods and things I could easily throw away and then I'd feel a sense of relief and accomplishment and stop. I rarely touched my corners and unearthed the things in them.

I kept this fear of becoming a hoarder alive even though I didn't really have the symptoms.

I had an average sized 1 bedroom apartment. It had your typical bedroom, bathroom, living room, kitchen and a small off kitchen dining room which I used as an office. My apartment was full of stuff. It, to this day, amazes me how much stuff was in my apartment.

When it came time to move cross-country I had to become ruthless and face my corners.

I started with the bookshelves and anything that I didn't love was taken to the used bookstore and traded for cash. I bought book boxes to put all the remaining books into and then tackled my CDs next and boxed them up. I wanted to move the least amount possible as I was paying to ship them and didn't want to keep my habits, which is really what I think all my stuff was, "bad habits."

In the end after a great deal of help from family we ended up taking one pickup truck bed full, a couple vans full, and a flatbed trailer full of stuff to various charities. This did not include the items that I sold off like my bed, couch, bookshelves, etc.

All that was taken to charity was my old bad habits .. more commonly known as clutter or junk.

I ended up with 45 boxes that contained my life out of what would have been hundreds if I hadn't gotten rid of things. Yes, I do regret some of the things I no longer have but not seriously. They are things which can be replaced once I'm in a place where I have a bit more room but all in all, I don't miss them. I don't regret the ruthlessness in which I purged my home (and life).

I moved and was able to unpack most of my things in my new home with only a dozen or so boxes in storage for things that simply didn't fit like my Vita-Mix blender and ice-cream machine - things I wasn't willing to part with but have been unable to use in the past 9 months. Many of the things in storage are childhood things which I couldn't part with like my first cabbage patch doll or old school yearbooks. These were things that were irreplaceable. Even though they took up precious space and cluttered my home I kept them and now they sit in storage.

I feared becoming a hoarder when I had a small place filled with too many things and to this day I still fear it but I'm not sure why. Even after I pared my "life" down to such a small amount of boxes I still fear it. I think it is this fear that keeps me cleaning my home and constantly sifting through my belongings to find things to get rid of.

I practice this most with my clothing. I have about 10 days worth of outfits. I must do my laundry every week and I usually end up washing 75% of everything I own each week. If I buy something new I will generally pull something out of my closet and put in the charity bag. I have two bags right now ready to go. I should say that I don't spend much money on my clothes at all so I don't feel I'm being wasteful.

I recently went through my yarn and pulled out a garbage sack full of yarn to give away to charity. It's harder for me to part with my yarn because I had plans for most of it. I could SEE the projects I was going to make with it and I had such good hopes and yet I didn't do anything with it. I kept a lot of my yarn and I'm OK doing this process several times but for now, I have purged quite a bit and some others will benefit from what was growing dusty in my own home.

In the end, this yarn went to an in-patient facility for women recovering from drug/alcohol abuse. As part of their therapy they are taught to knit or crochet. It's something that helps keep them occupied and feel a sense of accomplishment. I took multiple bags of yarn (also donated by my knitting group) to this home and shared it with them. The joy that they had for this was incredible. I had previously felt much anxiety about the amount of yarn that I had and yet when I gave it to these women who had very little at all, I felt a sense of relief and joy that I'd been able to give something to them. I didn't regret any purchase I'd made any longer. I can't believe how amazing that felt to me. To let go of that guilt I had for having so much only because I was able to share it with those who didn't.

It's all part of a process of changing who I am in my life and the direction that I'm going. I made sweeping changes in my health and have moved on to other areas where I have blockage. I don't aspire to live in a sterile home but I do want to live in a neat, organized, and clean home. I don't want piles. Piles to me, represent waste and to a degree gluttony.

Having more than I need is a blessing and one I'm fortunate to be able to experience but having the ability to have more does not always mean one should have more. I want to live a life where I don't feel anxiety about the things that I own and enjoy them out in my home, not shoved in boxes in storage or in corners.

I don't think I'll ever be over my fear of being a hoarder but over the past year I've come to the realization that it's not always a bad thing to fear having too much stuff. It keeps me in line with my goals and desires and while it can at times be irrational it is useful to me.

I admit I did feel a tremendous sense of loss when I looked around my empty apartment with only those 45 boxes in it. It felt desolate and scary. I'd never had so little in my life. Yet the truth is, I still had too many things!

We don't always see the reality of our lives until we are forced to do so in situations we don't normally encounter. It is how you deal with those realities afterwards that makes the difference.