Confessions of a Packrat

One day I sat in my apartment and started to feel an over whelming feeling of claustrophobia. It slapped me across the face with a sting I can’t put into words. That day I found myself drenched in sweat as I rummaged almost in a possessed like trance through boxes and cabinets and drawers. I made five trips to the dumpster that day and yet my yearning for space and that horrible itch of claustrophobia still gnawed at me. Weeks went by… four garbage bags full of clothes to donate, a 75% reduction in holiday paraphernalia, unnecessary boxes for the computer/stereo flattened and taken to the trash, hours upon hours of relentless rummaging through boxes, countless trips to the dumpster. All-in-all about a 50% reduction in the amount of crap sitting in my apartment. You would think that I would be okay with this but the itch still gnaws at me.

I moved in to this open loft apartment a year and three months ago in an effort to assess what kind of crap I had been traveling with and what I needed and what I did not. I figured the open space would be an eyesore when I finally measured all of my worldly possessions in one open space but packrats know that despite the box we haven’t seemed to need to open in the last two years there COULD be something contained in that box that we NEED. I thought that I had done a rather satisfying job of downsizing prior to my move into this place. In fact I found myself on occasion tooting my own horn about it to my mother, the original packrat. Somehow the 28 years of comments like “I might need this some day” “This would be great if ----- ever happens” “I’ll get to this project soon” started to make my skin itch. I started to be embarrassed to have people in the apartment. I started dreaming about just picking up and leaving all my shit here and getting as far away as I could from it or just selling it all for whatever I could get for it.

The more I threw away the less liberated I felt. With every one trash bag I felt that there should be two. With every two I felt there should be three. I got angry and frustrated at myself that with all the work I was doing I wasn’t seeing progress, I still felt trapped by all this stuff. I’m being oppressed by my former self who used stuff to make her feel whole. I want to shake that person but she has a hold on me.

I drew up criteria in my head that would help me stick to basic rules when deciding whether to keep or get rid of things. Like If it doesn’t fit- get rid of it! If you haven’t used it in the last year- get rid of it! If it held sentimental value at the time but it doesn’t anymore- get rid of it! If you’ve never used it or worn it and you’ve had it for more than a year- get rid of it! If you are saving it for that one moment you have created in your head that’s never seems to happen- get rid of it! Months of this “editing” consumed my life. I whittled and whittled away at this monstrosity that I lived with. I was a crazy person throwing things down from the lofted area of the apartment in fits of rage and contempt. Scaring the cats who peacefully slept below. The apartment would take on the look of a war zone for days at a time while I sorted and filed and made piles (yes, no, maybe).

All-in-all I decreased my belongings by about 50%. I wish I could say that my satisfaction in that stayed with me for some time but it hasn’t. I am still flinging open cabinets and getting frustrated with myself with what I find hidden within their depths. Tonight it was two trips to the trash and I’m angry there wasn’t more. More angry that what I threw away tonight is officially filed under the second sweep as I had hoped that all the nonsensical things had made it out of here on the first run. I imagined that this would get harder and harder as the months passed and I was left with the things I must truly believe I should keep and I would have to do some sort of psychoanalysis on myself to truly understand what my attachment was but I am still finding things in which I say “Why the hell did I save this?”

I am a sentiment fool. I found the paper bags the wine came in from a vineyard a friend and I visited a couple years ago tucked behind some dusty VHS tapes I never planned to watch again. I have the photos and I have the memories of that trip- why would I need to keep a tattered old bag that I clearly never pull out?

I am making progress. The other day I went to throw out a wedding announcement card that had been on my refrigerator since the new year and it took someone off guard. He replied with a simple “I’m here to encourage you to de-clutter so I won’t say anything”. It was a big step for me. It sat beneath a magnet on my freezer door for six months while I fought an internal battle. In the end I knew I wouldn’t do anything with it. Despite my best intentions it would be piled with the wedding invitation from the first of us to walk down the aisle and the shower invitation of a couple I’ve known for years. I was never going to do anything with that stuff. I never did.

This de-cluttering is a work in progress. A step towards a new beginning for me. I’m well on my way but I’m not quite there. One thing is for certain- I will not allow material things to take over my life like this again. They do not make me who I am, I am not less of a person because I do not have them, I will not forget that moment without this, they are not me and I am not them….it’s just stuff after all.