Decluttering by Debra H. Goldstein

Twelve years ago, we downsized from a home where four kids, two parents, and a dog slept most nights to a house that has his and hers master bathrooms for the only two people who share the master bedroom. In preparation for our move, we gave away furniture, dishes, clothing, and other junk. We sent each child a box of things they insisted on keeping into adulthood – the naked plastic baby doll with no hair, named Baby, was fun to send to the now mother of two. Although we moved most of my books, boxes of them were donated to a women’s shelter, a school, and the Friends of the Library sale. We felt decluttered.

Flash forward twelve years and I realized how uncomfortably cluttered our house is. Perhaps it is realizing the kids are truly gone except visits and their homes don’t lend themselves to the furniture, china, and silver accumulated over the years as our wedding gifts or when our parents and grandparents passed. Perhaps it is realizing some of the things I took from my mother’s house when she died four years ago have meaning but aren’t really keepsakes (like the sizzle platters one can heat up and serve a steak on). Perhaps it is a desire to simplify and possibly downsize again? 

I’m not doing anything about getting rid of my husband or the things in his closet, but after talking

about my closet for months, I finally took the first steps to declutter it this week. I spent hours going through my clothing. All but three suits I kept after I retired are gone, as are the shells, skirts, and pants I thought I might wear again if I ever lost five to twenty pounds. What was hardest to get rid of was my shoe collection. Books and shoes were always my obsession, but the rebuilding of my foot means my cute, beautiful, stylish shoes will never fit again --- I’m embarrassed to admit how many pairs I packed up to donate. Let us simply say, I kept two pairs of sneakers, one ugly as sin dress shoe purchased after the surgery, and a pair of oxfords that I bought for hiking but that happen to be a brand one can slip an orthotic into. What is still in the closet lacks style, but all are functional.

Emboldened by the five bags of clothing and shoes I took out of my closet (even though it doesn’t look like anything changed), I went through the TBR bookcase I keep in the corner of that same closet. It had been overflowing, but now there is almost an entire empty shelf. Two boxes of books I took home from conferences, before I learned to leave the ones I didn’t care for on the exchange tables, are ready to donate.

I’m not finished decluttering the closet yet, but I’ve made a dent in revising my possessions in a manner similar to how I revise my writing. I revise by reading and rewriting what I previously wrote, which is much like keeping a few things that might fit in the future. Total revision is something I put off as long as possible. Like with my shoes, I hate to give up my darlings, but I know I must pare my words down to only those that serve as the structure for the story or book. It isn’t fun. It’s time consuming and often the end result doesn’t look much different than when I started, but it is. The extraneous clutter is missing.

What’s in your closet you can rid yourself of?