Reversing an old habit

The adage goes ‘Old habits die hard’, and they do. Certainly one of the worst ones I have is the need for clutter around me. Well, I can’t say it’s a need necessarily, it’s just what I’ve become accustomed to, what’s easiest and it’s certainly what I grew up with.

My parents were pack rats. Today they would be branded as hoarders, but the result is the same. Granted this condition probably stemmed from growing up during the Depression years of the first third of the  20th century where families were losing fortunes, property, and their life savings as well as their possessions every day. You held onto whatever you had as long as you could. Too, things were built to last longer, not like today when items you purchase might not even last a season, let alone a year.

With all that in mind, I’m reminded that I have a house chock full of stuff. Every room has piles of things that just sit and take up space, they don’t move for weeks, sometimes months and quite often years. Add in the fact I have a storage bin with boxes of items, old furniture, and antiques from my parent’s house. Much of it hasn’t been touched in close to 30 years, certainly, much of it is still in the same boxes they were packed up in, in 1992. As I get older, I begin to worry about what will become of it when I’m gone. I don’t have children to pass it onto, so more than likely it will either be auctioned off or tossed in a dumpster somewhere. Or a landfill. That’s a sobering thought.

With all that in mind, I’ve come to the conclusion something needs to be done before that scenario may come to pass.

The way I figure it, there are 12 rooms/sections of the house (not counting the storage bin, but definitely counting the garage) and there are 12 months in the year. It’s not to the point where there are newspapers and junk piled in every room, but there are things, and boxes, trash, and just stuff cluttered here and there that can be dealt with. I’m not going for a ‘hoe-out’, where things get tossed en masse, but we do need to cut down on the crap and minimize in many cases. Donate some, sell others, toss what’s broken, can’t be fixed or is beyond salvage. When we cleaned out my parent’s house in ’92 we filled 5 long construction debris bins with things they had accumulated over the years, and a lot of stuff was still left behind even so. I don’t want a repeat of that. That was hellacious.

So that’s my goal for 2020. 12 months, 12 rooms. I’ll be updating this as I go. If I finish a room early, I can start on the next, I think that’s fair.

Wish me luck.

One Reply to “Reversing an old habit”

  1. I know you can do this and have every faith you will get it done. As for your stuff being tossed or going to the garbage bin, not as long as I [have] life in me.

Your comment or viewpoint is always welcome.
