declutterator

I’m cleaning out drawers. Drawers and closets and medicine cabinets. All those places where you find tiny butterfly hair clips that your daughters didn’t like very much even when they were 10, and carry out menus from places that closed 2 years ago, and packets labeled “Your Bicycle Papers.” (Who goes back and reads documentation about a bike? Who?) I’ve already done the basement, which was the worst of it. It’s pared down to objects whose existence I can justify without having to think very hard. My side of the basement, that is. Jeff’s side...well, that is for a phase of life I haven’t gotten to yet.

We’ve just cleared out my mother-in-law’s apartment (well, at least I helped,) and--though it’s interesting to see the things she found worth hanging onto--I’m determined that my children will have a very boring time picking up after me. I don’t know whether that’s good or bad, but--more importantly, and more immediately--when and if I ever move, it’ll just be a matter of throwing a few things (really. a few.) into boxes, and leaving the furniture for the moving people to deal with.

But there’s a lot. Despite my having launched major decluttering initiatives on several occasions over the past decade, there’s always more than you think. I have a digital post-it note on my MacBook desktop where I can check off the clutter repositories as I address them. Very satisfying to see the little check-marks line up. Even though I only have one, so far. There will be more soon. Don’t worry.