(This is Part 1 of a group of reflections prompted by this book. Part 2 is here, part 3 is here.)
If you’ve read any of my “book reflections” before, you’ll know they’re a bit of a cross between me talking about a book I’ve read and me just rabbiting on about myself. This one is probably going to be more rabbiting on about myself than usual.
I’ve recent read yet another decluttering book (actually, I listened to the audiobook): Decluttering at the Speed of Life, by Dana K. White (who also read the audiobook).
If you read back over the posts I’ve written about books over the years, you’ll probably find quite a few books about decluttering, cleaning, tidying, organising… You may find yourself wondering if I’m some sort of neat freak whose house is unspeakably tidy, or if I’m a complete slob who reads decluttering books for inspiration but actually never properly gets her house in order, which is why I keep reading decluttering books.
Well, mostly it’s the latter, but I also just like reading decluttering and cleaning books. Like Romance novels, I find them a nice light “holiday” read – something comforting and familiar for when I don’t want to have to think too deeply about a plot or meaningful information.
I have to say White’s book is up there among the better ones I’ve read. She isn’t – how shall I put this? – noticeably insane. Rather, she’s someone who has noticed that decluttering is actually a lot like cleaning – it’s a constant process that never ends because you keep gathering new clutter, and eventually you’re going to have to declutter again. She’s also a recovering slob and a bower bird, so she writes from the perspective of knowing how stuff creeps up on you and how hard it is to declutter your “dreams”.
As I was listening to her read her book, I found myself often saying, “uhunh – you got that right” and “yeah, I hear that.” Unlike Marie Kondo, who was apparently raised by Home Beautiful magazines and has always had a compulsive aversion to untidy spaces, Dana has more of a relation to stuff that matches my own, so I could relate to what she said a little more. She also has a really good reading voice. You can tell she’s been a podcaster for a few years.
I often listen to these books while I’m sorting through a cupboard or doing housework, and there was a point during the middle of listening to this when I realised some of the things I’ve been holding onto for years as “favourite things” or “beloved treasures” weren’t actually for me at all. Well, they were, but they weren’t…
I realised I have been holding onto a lot of stuff in case 10-Year-Old Me comes to visit. This isn’t the first time I’ve noticed this, but this time it really hit home.
My mother was a single parent. Most of her friends who had kids around my age moved Down South almost before I was born, and her other friends either had grown children who had left home or didn’t have any kids. When she would go visiting her friends from university or Church, I would get dragged in tow because there wasn’t anyone to babysit, and I’d end up going through whatever “treasures” were at the homes of her friends. Looking at their nick-knacks, photos of holidays, boxes of old comics and random books…
These were the things people dumped on me to keep me occupied while they had proper conversations in the next room, and I loved them. I loved looking at the weird ceramic thingies people had collected over the years, I loved pouring through old holiday brochures from the 70s – and I especially loved getting to go through someone’s old comic book collection or the toys their kids played with 10 years ago.
Essentially, I loved this clutter that other people had kept, and so part of me was keeping the same kind of clutter – not because “Adult Sharon” still looked at it or paid any attention to it at all, but because I instinctively knew that if 10-Year-Old Me dropped by, she’d love looking through this stuff.
And I guess I have sort of been keeping it for the next kid. The grandkids I’m never going to have because I never wanted children. The nephews and nieces I’m never going to have because I have no siblings and the only cousins who have kids aren’t close and aren’t visiting. The “friends’ kids” who aren’t going to visit because the only friends I have with children usually leave them with the other parent when we hang out – and we usually go out to socialise, we don’t visit each other’s houses.
I’ve been keeping photographs that no one is going to care about except me – and I stopped caring about half of them years ago. I’ve been keeping books, toys and trinkets for “some kid” to play with, but the only way any child is going to play with them is if these things leave the house. And I’ve been keeping things that I don’t particularly want and no one else is going to want either (because they’re old and ratty or damaged), because if I manage to go back in time and meet up with my younger self, that kid loved playing with them – but no child is ever going to play with them again, and neither am I.
So much of what I’ve held onto has been for a version of me that doesn’t exist. If not 10-Year-Old Me who loved looking at old junk kept in boxes, then 20-Year-Old Me who collected stuff out of some weird idea that the collection itself meant something – that one day I’d have some sort of tourist attraction consisting of my ridiculous number of DC Superhero posters and DVDs or my massive collection of Tarzan movies. I have movies I’ve never watched and books I’ve never read, but carried with me from place to place and spent vast sums of money accumulating, because they fit in with some collection that meant something to me… once.
But quite frankly, I’m never going to open a “Museum of Pop Culture Hero Crap”. And no one else is, either. This was someone else’s passion that they were trying to turn into a project. I’m holding onto it for them, but the truth is they don’t exist anymore. I know, because I replaced them.
And while a part of me knew that I was no longer interested in these things, some part of me has still been keeping it for the next kid. But there isn’t going to be a next kid. I’m holding onto it for a ghost and a phantom.
And let’s not forget the unrequited dreams – all the things I was going to be. The person who made toys out of scrap material, who whittled, who played dozens of musical instruments, who took up all sorts of hobbies for which I have some of the stuff. I still don’t want to admit I’m never going to do that thing or be that person… but…
Ghosts and phantoms. I’m holding on their stuff. But maybe I’m finally reaching the point where I don’t want to.
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