When cleaning clutter is BAD

One of my goals for this summer is to really go through my stuff and clear out what I don’t need. I tried to do that when I moved last year, but I wasn’t able to do a spectacular job of it because the move was rather fast, and I was trying to move not clean. So aside from getting a lot of sewing/quilting done (which I am making visible progress on and it feels good) I also want to get rid of stuff. My mind feels more organized when my surroundings are more organized (that wasn’t a problem when I was a teenager which explains why I didn’t feel such a need to clean when I was a teenager, must be old age or something).

But this does NOT mean that I will be cleaning out down to the bare minimum needed for survival. I live in a home. Homes are where you thrive. Homes are where memories live. And some of those memories live in objects.

So reading a post on Declutter Your Life about, “letting go of sentimental attachments,” part of me wanted to scream out, “Noooo!!!” It’s those sentimental objects that make a house a home. It’s that feeling you get when you open up a book that belonged to your grandpa and see some notes he made in pencil. It’s seeing the little nick-knacks that remind you of who you are, where you came from, where you’ve been, where you are going, and those who love you along the way.

I’ve seen the pictures and tv shows of people who take it to an extreme. Junk is junk and should be thrown out. But don’t throw out your memories. Don’t de-clutter your home to the point of living in a large hotel room that has no meaning. We need that meaning in our life. It’s part of being human.