I have been rearranging and cleaning out stuff in the house to try to make it easier to deal with, and also in anticipation of the Halloween party (October 24! Write it down!). This is the sort of task that seems really exciting at first and then after I’ve been at it a while it just makes me want to curl up in a little ball and weep.
The obvious trash is easy to toss. The shoes I got for my brother’s first wedding that I haven’t worn in at least five years, it’s easy to throw those in the Value Village pile.
The real problem is the objects that I know are useful or beloved when considered individually, but when displaced from their previous home and gathered together in piles they turn into a Bunch of Stupid Random Crap I Don’t Want to Deal With. I find myself tossing items I’ve had since high school just because I’m sick of figuring out a place to put it. I get tempted to just take a torch to the whole thing and just have done with it.
I know exactly what you mean. I find these tasks easier to face with a friend or two to help.
I prefer doing it alone, with the music turned up really loud. I’ve never tried it with friends, but when Paul is there we tend to trip over each other and provide distractions of the “we’ve done enough! let’s get beer!” variety.
Ah. You need someone like Miki or my mother who will keep you on task and ask pertinent questions like “Are you really ever going to use that again? Honestly? When is the last time you read/wore/took that out of the box?” and that sort of variety. Also to keep me from feeling quite so bleak about the monstrosity of the whole thing.
I hate that. You are like, “I can’t throw this out, I’ve had it since I was six/fourteen, it has my first vomit/love poems!” But what will you do with them, other than pick them up once in a while?
Well, picking things up once in a while is more important to me than you might think. I have a very tactile memory, and memory triggers are not only important to me personally, they’re an important part of my creative process.
So it’s a complicating factor. When I really need to get into the head of a high school student, I actually get value out of being able to read the notebook I kept when I was fifteen.