I have spoken before about clearing out my house of things that I feel I no longer need. I have really been on a roll this past few weeks, clearing out and moving on without the excess baggage – in one case, quite literally – that I don’t need to keep.
I am gradually moving through my house as I discover things that have served their purpose but no longer seem necessary. Yesterday, for instance, I was doing some baking and I got something from a cupboard and saw a yoghurt maker in there. I actually had two of them and I thought ‘I don’t need two now, I’ll see if my daughter wants them’ so I did and she did, so off they went to her house. I also had a lovely bright fluero pink takeaway coffee cup that I used to use at work. I haven’t used it in over a year now. I have looked at it from time to time and thought I should use it, but really don’t need to, so I have given that to my daughter as well.
I recently was in an Opp Shop and found a really nice picnic basket, fully equipped with cups and plates and wine glasses. I also have a picnic basket I have had for years and have many happy memories of picnics with the grandchildren. In my picnic basket is a set of coloured metal cups that we used when we were children – my brothers and I – and they hold fond memories. I have used them with my grandchildren too. So, when I was in another Opp Shop recently I happened upon a set of four metal cups, very similar to my own ones. I had to buy them, so that they would be in my daughter’s picnic basket, just like mine. It’s funny isn’t it, that a small thing like a set of metal cups can bring up happy memories!
My daughter got rather a lot of goodies brought to her house yesterday. The other thing I had in my house was two ‘hold-alls’ with wheels that we had used for travelling previously. However, we have downsized and downsized further to quite small cases that we are now going to use for all our trips, long and short. The hassle of lugging a huge and heavy case from place to place just isn’t worth it. So, with my grandchildren often going to stay with friends, or – for one of them – a boyfriend I passed on two hold-alls to them as well.
I can see why people try to ‘get their house in order’ when they feel that they are running out of time. Not that that is the case for me at all, but it is a good feeling that you are ditching some of the unnecessary clutter from your home and your life. Next stop is my junk drawer in my kitchen and the one in my study! I have always had a junk drawer. Have you? The draw where you pick something up somewhere in the house and think, where should I put this? The drawer that gets things like a random screw, or a button, or a ‘something I have no idea what it is, but better not throw it out in case I need it’ kind of thing. Of course, you never do find out what it is and what it is used for, so it just joins all sorts of random things that have found a home in the junk drawer.
Maybe the junk drawer is a bit of a metaphor for life. Sometimes we hang on to things that no longer have a useful purpose. Perhaps it is the hurt and pain of a breakup that means you hang on to those feelings for years and years and for what? So that there is a corner of your heart and your mind that never truly moves forward and gets past it? Do we keep these hurt feelings to remind us that things can turn bad and as a warning? Perhaps we need to declutter the junk drawer in our heads and in our hearts and get rid of those thoughts and feelings that we no longer need? That would certainly be worthwhile.
I think this decluttering both mentally and of the physical space I inhabit will be carrying on for some time yet.
My journey with Parkinsons 