For some reason, it's easier to make fun of someone else's hoarding than to deal with our own.
My mom is a prime target of our mockery. We laugh at her jello that's as old as her house (I really have no idea how old her jello is, just that it is old. But still good, of course. Gelatin is longevous.).
Recently, my son found some jello in my own pantry which was several years expired. I discarded it. When you have a child whose nervous system does not respond kindly to Red #40, you do things like throw jello away. Even longevous jello.
Later, I was cleaning the cupboard with some jars full of dry goods. There was a jar of red hots that I'm pretty sure pre-dated Craig and my first date, which was also red hot (well, actually, it wasn't. It was cool and awkward, but we had a second date). Anyway, I was debating the fate of the red hots, which I won't feed my children for the same reason I avoid Jello. I tapped the side of the jar to dislodge the aged red hots, and the jar busted. It was a slow cascade from the broken jar, but the red hots poured and poured and poured, into my jacket, and into my pockets, and all over the floor. The red hot question answered itself.
Too many spaces in my house are occupied by things that are there just because Someone put them there. "Do it later" stacks don't work well for me; they just invite friends over to stay.
It's a testimony to Crisis Hopping, and being in survival mode for too long.
So I have been slowly working my way through The Stacks, making room for Current Things in our lives.
If I would get embarrassed by this sort of thing, I would be Very Embarrassed. But instead, I blab about it online, because, well, maybe you have piles you need to dig through too, and I'm here to say, "You can do it!"
I found treasures like chapstick from a job fair in nursing school. From 2008?
Tonight, I went through this entire stack of tubs, and saved a few things, and filed a few more. One of them was tax information from 2017/2018, blissfully taking up space in my cupboard. That information has been relocated to a logical location, and I have both the container AND some extra cupboard space. It probably took 20 minutes to get through the entire stack.
Here are a few reasons I have so many things to "unhoard":
- Poor boundaries, and not vetting incoming things more carefully.
- Physical and mental/emotional limitations. I legitimately had to let some things go, through certain seasons.
- Procrastination
- Perfectionism, and waiting for the perfect time to do the perfect thing with the stuff.
So now, I've got stacks and boxes to deal with.
One Little Thing at a time.
Now I'm curious- what are the space-fillers in your life? How do you avoid the Procrastination Cesspool?
