Today is the first official day of my 31 days of decluttering
challenge. Since I already started
working in my bedroom yesterday, I decided to continue there. Just like yesterday, I ended up doing way
more than the original 15 minutes. I
even did a morning and afternoon session.
The afternoon session focused on jewelry. I have so much jewelry and jewelry making
stuff that I’m not going to go any further on the topic right now. Let’s just say that all the time today was
spent simply gathering it all up from the various nooks and crannies my jewelry
migrates to, which is pretty much everywhere.
I definitely need to make a more coherent plan before I tackle the
jewelry clutter.
For the morning session, I started with 4 storage bins of varying sizes
that line the floor of my closet. I
didn’t end up getting rid of much compared to what was kept; however, there’s a
really good reason. One bin was filled
with some of my all-time favorite sweaters.
Unfortunately, I had stopped wearing all of them because I had gained
more weight and couldn't fit in to them anymore. Now that I’ve lost 60 pounds, I can fit into
some of them again and the others I kept I will fit into soon. YAY!!!
I know the experts say not to keep anything you can’t immediately wear;
however, given my continued weight loss I’m not going to follow that rule right
now. I’ve held on to these clothes this
long, it seems kind of stupid and fiscally irresponsible to ditch them now. I am releasing anything that I don’t
absolutely love or that doesn’t fit my current style (whatever that is!). I’m thrilled to be wearing some of my
favorite clothes again!!!
I kept some clothing
items I probably shouldn’t have because they need repairs and I haven’t made a
point of fixing them all this time. I
also couldn’t wear them so there was no motivation. I dedicated one of the bins to repairs and
plan to limit what’s kept to this one bin.
I also pledge that anything in the bin that is not repaired by the time
I move in August will be pitched then.
Before I get to this next part, I need to fill in a little bit of
backstory on my current living space. In
July 2011, I went from a spacious two-bedroom apartment to a cramped
two-bedroom apartment. The move was not
my choice and I went from a place that I absolutely adored to one that I don’t
really like. I never intended to stay in
this apartment as long as I have but the sheer amount of stuff I have has kept
me rooted in place. I made some promises
to myself that I would go through everything and get rid of stuff before I
moved again. I’ve made a couple of
attempts and got rid of some stuff here and there but not enough to make the
thought of moving sound feasible. Since
I haven’t made good on my pledge, I haven’t moved so 4 years later I am still
living in a place I hate as punishment.
I am determined to move when my lease is up this coming August so I can
finally pick a living space I like and not just one that was convenient in a
pinch, just another one of the many reasons for doing this challenge.
Why is all that important? You
need to know that I have boxes and storage bins EVERYWHERE. I’m not kidding. They line the closets and walls. There are stacks of them in every room except
the bathroom and kitchen. There is so
much it is easy to lose things or not remember where things are. I finally unearthed a few things I’d realized
I’d been missing since I moved a while ago, but there are still some big ticket
items I haven’t been able to find. After
today’s discovery, I’m hoping I will find them all as I continue the excavation
process.
Hiding out in one of the bins buried in my closet was a treasure that I
thought was lost forever. I can’t tell
you how relieved and happy I am to have found this item. You see, it’s the quilt my mother made
me. I picked out all the material and
the pattern then she put it together with love.
It had started fraying on the folded over edges so I had taken it with
me on one of my trips to California so she could repair it. Unfortunately, I didn’t purchase enough
binding tape and we couldn’t find the right color out there. I brought it back home with me and purchased
more of the right color binding tape but I don’t know how to sew. In the move, I put the quilt and binding tape
in a gorgeous velvet pillow sham and placed it in this bin. Time passed, I forgot what I’d done with the
quilt and never looked hard enough in the bin.
I would have missed it again if I hadn’t taken a second look at the
sham. When I picked it up to put it back
in the bin, I realized that it wasn’t stuffed with a pillow so I turned it
over. Through a gap in the buttons I saw
a flower pattern and my heartbeat accelerated.
You see, I’d already told my mother a while back that I couldn’t find my
quilt. I was so disappointed in myself
that I had lost track of something so precious to me. Since she died two months ago, I was even
more upset with myself since she’d never be able to make me another one. When I unbuttoned the sham to reveal the
quilt my mother made me, I started weeping tears of joy, gratitude, happiness
and love. It was one of the first quilts
my mom made and, of course, I picked an unusual pattern so it wasn’t the
easiest to make either. It’s not perfect
and definitely shows signs of wear and use.
Still, I love it just as much as I always have…possibly even more now. The sheer joy in finding it is enough to make
my month. I just wanted to wrap myself
up in it and never move. I held it,
smelled it, caressed it, wept into it, completely unfolded it and then
re-folded it again. Part of the point of
this challenge is to stay focused and not indulge in depressive emotions and
thoughts. That’s not to say I am
stuffing down my feelings and not mourning my mom because when I need to cry, I
cry. Given all the discussions she and I
had about feeling crushed under the weight of the sheer volume of stuff that
surrounded each of us, I know moving forward is honoring her more than crawling
under the quilt and never surfacing would.
Besides, it still needs some TLC and I want to do some research on how
to preserve it since it now holds even more significance to me. I have what I need to fix it and will enlist
the help of an expert to get it repaired as soon as possible. I don’t think I will use it on my bed the way
I have in the past because I don’t want it to get damaged. However, if I can safely hang it on the wall,
I plan to hang it in my bedroom. Not
sure if I will hang it up in my current bedroom since I plan on moving in less
than a year. Then again, I’ve missed it
so much and it’s a beautiful reminder of my mom that I may just do it.
Today’s lesson was that when you have too much stuff, you can’t keep
track of prized possessions. My mom’s
quilt will be a constant reminder not to accumulate more stuff than I need or
have space for moving forward.
TODAY OVERALL
ITEMS DONATED: 23 77
ITEMS TRASHED: 17 31
RELEASE
TOTAL: 40
ITEMS 108
ITEMS (in 2 days!)
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