Cleanin’ Out My Closet
I watched a youtube video about how a cluttered space can clutter ones mind. Naturally, I spent the following day cleaning and organizing closets. Reevaluate my junk stores really did make me feel lighter, and made it easier to slide into a productive flow. I didn’t even get rid of much, but making it organized and accessible transformed junk into “supplies”. The whole process got me to thinking about why I accumulate things the way I do…
“You collect too much junk. my partner Mike told me. “My grandfather had a lot of junk!”, I countered. “He filled over half a dozen portable buildings and sheds to the ceiling with his junk. If all my junk is confined to a closet or two (and a very small section of the garage), I think I am not quite to the title of “too much.”
My sister thinks my grandfather was a hoarder, but I knew what he was doing. Once I knew there was a pile of pvc pipes in the middle shed, I knew where to go for parts when I needed to build a lightsaber. There really was something striking about white porcelain against a lush green yard (even if that porcelain was a broken toilet turned planter). His actions taught me the following junk commandments:
Once you’ve experienced having almost nothing, every thing you do have has value.
The value inherent in any given thing does not diminish even if broken.
Broken things can be fixed, but even when they cannot, if you keep them long enough, eventually you can give them a new purpose.
Very eco-friendly beliefs, but a dilemma arises when you truly see the value of junk: suddenly everything around you is worth keeping. I can’t walk down the street and pass a discarded chest of drawers on the sidewalk without taking a peek. Friends know this about me and give me things they think I’ll be able to repurpose. I lack my grandfather’s ability to build a new shed, so my when closet space fills up, I have to implement additional commandments in regard to junk:
4. Let go of things that no longer fit in the space I’ve allotted for them.
5. Let go of things that will not serve me in the foreseeable future.
6. Let go of things that no longer bring me joy (thanks for that one, Marie Kondo!)
Maybe my collector/hoarder tendencies are learned or maybe they’re in my DNA, but thinking critically about why I have the desire to save things has helped me to control the impulse AND helped maintain a living situation that is pleasing to me and my partner, so as long as I follow my commandments, I think I’ll be okay,
Do you have any junk commandments?
