Self-Care Sundays: The Joy of Purging

Y’all, I gotta tell ya – I *love* to throw things away. I think part of that is because I was raised by parents who have always been minimalists, and it’s partly because the older I get, the less stuff I need in my life. If I have fewer physical items in my space, it makes it easier to value the things that I actually do possess. Not only that, it means fewer decisions I have to make about stuff – and since I managed to develop myself a nice new anxiety disorder in 2020, fewer decisions are really great for sense of well-being. I’d rather pick my battles and make decisions about things that are important, rather than about stuff that really doesn’t matter to me in the grand scheme of things. Also, it’s a hell of a lot easier to keep a house clean when there’s less stuff in it. Don’t believe me? Watch an episode of Hoarders and tell me I’m wrong.

Now, obviously, I recognize that there’s a degree of privilege involved in the ability to declutter. Not everyone is able to just donate or discard stuff — and I know, because I’ve been in a position where I couldn’t eliminate things because I didn’t have the resources to replace them, so trust me, I get it. I understand that everyone’s situation — financial, healthwise, socially, or otherwise — is different. This post is about the opportunity to purge if you are able to do so.

So anyway, about a year ago I decided to start a massive overhaul of the amount of stuff in my possession — partly because I decided I wanted to buy a house last summer, and owning fewer things meant moving fewer things. Now, I’ll be the first to admit, I don’t think I have a lot of stuff, especially compared to most other people in my age bracket. But I also know that I tend to sometimes hold on to stuff thinking I’ll use it later… except I don’t, so why is it even here? Even for someone like me, who doesn’t shop much and hates to accumulate, somehow, every few years things start to multiply.

I read a post by Ann Marie Heasley over on White House Black Shutters, about her 40 Bags in 40 Days Challenge. Ann Marie decided to do a Lenten decluttering challenge, in which she’d fill up forty bags with stuff to get rid of. Now, obviously, I ain’t doin’ anything for Lent, because it’s not my jam at all, but I thought it would be a good exercise in really taking the time to evaluate what I had, and what I didn’t need. Now that my kids are all feral adults with their own places to live, I wanted to make a commitment to myself to make do with less. Following Ann Marie’s lead, I created a Word doc with a table on it, with one box for each area I decluttered, and a corresponding box for what I got rid of. I decided I’d do thirty bags in thirty days, and boy, was I surprised by the result.

In thirty days, I took 27 boxes of donations to the local Goodwill. I sent one large box of textbooks off with my son to be returned to the campus bookstore – I told him any money they gave him for those books was his. I took one bag of DVDs to a resale shop, where they gave me a small amount of cash for them – I didn’t care about the money as much as I cared about removing unwatched DVDs out of my house. I dropped off a sack of old, worn bath towels to the local animal shelter. I shredded two large boxes of unneeded paper. Also, I threw away 12 giant Hefty bags of stuff that wasn’t worth keeping or donating.

Here’s the best part: Even after a month, I wasn’t done.

I then tackled my garage, and I had four more shelves in the basement to work on. I sort of hit a point where I was almost a little sad I was running out of things to eliminate, but eventually I reached the end, and it was gratifying. To look at something and know I’ll never wear it, read it, watch it, use it, or love it… well, that’s a message to my brain that I DON’T NEED IT ANYMORE. And just like that, I was allowing myself to rehome things to people who might want to wear, read, watch, use, or love that thing. The stuff that no one will ever want – including me – can just go, and it stopped taking up space in my house and in my brain.

When I eventually did move, in summer 2021, I still had enough to pack a U-Haul and make several runs with a pickup truck… but it was significantly less stuff than I’d have had to move if I hadn’t decluttered. More importantly, everything that moved with me was something that was meaningful, and not just taking up space.