Tidy Up
---Someone once pointed out that while others use the royal ‘we’ to mean “I”, I use ‘we’ to mean Someone. Examples< “We should take out the trash’ or “We should clean up this place”. There are numerous things I would rather do than clean; but will gladly clean to avoid doing paperwork. Then there can be no end to tidy-chores. I don’t mind cleaning, if only it would stay that way. Today “Maria” came for her every two weeks cleaning of the house. The now clean house even smells good. If only we could close the place down for a week to keep it so. It is demoralizing to see it quickly go back to piles of clothes, books, and half drank glasses.I tend to clean and order drawers only to make messes on the counters. Someone does more of the opposite; putting as much away into cupboards as possible.
Periodically we get fliers in the door asking us to pack up unwanted things and put them on the curb for takeaway. If only! Once I tried to put out several cardboard boxes of old papers, saved receipts, and knickknacks gathering dust – but they wouldn’t touch them. Apparently charities are picky about what they want.
Perhaps it is a bluff. I sense if I gave away the junk it would lead me to worry that somewhere in the discards was that ‘thing’ I’ve saved for years and now desperately need to save my life. So things accumulate. I have my grandmother’s Hammond Organ to dispose. I am reconsidering the Ancient’s custom to have the deceased buried or burned with all their belongings. This saves the living the tedious task of saving things from guilt. At times it is rather macabre to have a dead relative’s things lying about.
What do you save out of guilt or neurosis?
posted by Ur-spo at 6:42 PM
5 Comments:
For the longest time I saved ticket stubs, magazines, receipts, you name it. But there's only room for so much so more recently I have been able to throw things away. But it's as you say, there have been numerous times I need things that I no longer have, of course it could just be I don't remember where I put them. And nothing makes you realize how bad saving everything is until you pack up and move 3,000 miles.
In my younger days, I saved everything! Now, given my current space restriction in the cottage, I save nothing. Space is so tight for me that if I buy I new shirt I need to be prepared to throw a current one out - just no more room in the closet. This has been a GODSEND to me - keeps the amount of crap I accumulate down to a minimum and much less to move if I ever decide to...
And WHY haven't I blogrolled you yet, my apologies! I will take care of that oversite today!
I don't know if I save so much stuff out of guilt, neurosis, or laziness. Being soooo ADD, I always think I'll get back to something. I WILL read that magazine, journal, article. . . . sometime.
I have a lot of family stuff, furniture, etc. sleeping on the bed my grandparents slept on. One child sleeps on the bed I slept on, and my father slept on, growing up. It gets to be hard to think about parting with some of that. But I don't really want to be in the museum business.
And, I want to think about having less, not more. Much less. It's just so much shtuff !
Cleaning and sorting through my exterior space sometimes help me do the same with my interior self.
Cheers, Joe
I save out of anxiety, rarely guilt. (Eyeing the two hideous Dresden china vases on my curio cabinet that my dad wants me to keeop rather than all the nice furniture he gave my sister, I realize this is not 100% true...) But I am always worried that this or that piece of paper will be needed at a later date so I never really dare throw anything out until it is so old that even the IRS would no longer care. As a result I sleep on an immense heap of paper. My den is like a nightmare of tax accountants with OCD. I could go on but the picture would not be pretty enoguh to post on the Net.
I don't keep anything out of guilt.
You want macabre:
I kept my mothers ashes for 10 months in my living room.
She wanted me to scather her ahses from a bridge, about a 2 hour drive from here.
I didn't have a car, and I wasn't really ready to let go.
Then in May mi friend had told me she would take me, whenever I was ready.
It was beautiful.
Her ashes came out and made a huge cloud and disapeared.
"I love you mom!"
Sorry, I had to.
Now, like Spider:"And WHY haven't I blogrolled you yet, my apologies! I will take care of that oversite today!"
Done!
Have fun!
J
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