Letting Go

I have a hard time letting go. You might be asking yourself what would make an English major write a sentence with such an obvious dangling modifier. Or, if you know me, you might just be saying "Yeah, duh. Tell me something I didn't know." But the truth of the matter is, you dont come here looking for things you dont know. I have come to a personal realization that I have a hard time letting go and while it is neither new nor revolutionary, the way that I have begun to understand the idea that I have a hard time letting go is.

For a great deal of my life, I have been knee deep in stuff. I believe the buzz word these days is clutter. I have been labelled as a packrat, I have been called a messy hoarder. I have been accused of hanging on long after it is necessary and appropriate. I know all these things about myself and, year after year, I make a determination that I am going to change my clutter-collecting ways, embark on decluttering missions and purging expeditions.

Perhaps it is the bane of half baked resolutions to come undone. I think that a goal that is earnestly desired is rarely acheived easily, no? So I carry on, year after year, labouring under the delusion that if I just buy the right container, the right basket, the right organizer, that my life will become less and by extension, I shall become less burdened. Alas, it isnt the way of things.

Years of purging and releasing bags of stuff back to the annals of the thrift stores from whence so much had come have only produced corners of my home devoted to black bags of stuff and boxes of recycling. You smirk because you know its true. The stuff has merely migrated into bags and the problem isnt solved because there is simply more stuff to take its place. And greater than before, the bags are a reminder of how unsightly stuff can be. At least when it was just knicknacks on a shelf, it looked reasonable, but knicknacks in a garbage bag? Just looks like garbage. And so the home with stuff now looks like a home with stuff AND garbage sitting in an untidy heap waiting for some absolution that only appears to arrive at teh turn of every year.

So this year I am resolved NOT to make resolutions. And though I will never be rid of the guilt of my stuff and will not quite be able to conquer the urge to purge and buy magazines promising to "Cut the Clutter!" and "Declutter in only 10 days", I have begun the journey of understanding that I have a hard time letting go.