Close your eyes for a minute and think of one thing in your home that you think about letting go of, donating, or selling. The process or where it ends up isn’t the point. Think of one thing that you think about, pick up, look at, and are kind of just like, “Nah, not today,” and put it down. It could be:
● a piece of clothing in your closet
● one of your children’s sports jerseys
● a dish that you never use but you got as a wedding gift
● a pillowcase from your mom or your grandma, who’s passed, or a husband or family member
These items seem totally unrelated. If you were to see them at a thrift store or a garage sale, you would see nothing in common between them, on the surface, that is. Each and every one of these items, technically, is sentimental to someone, or it was.
Why is it so hard to let go of sentimental items?
Sentimental items are hard to let go of because they often hold memories, relationships, and parts of our identity. The object is never only the object. It can represent who we were when it came into our lives, so releasing it may feel like letting go of that person, experience, or version of ourselves.
I enjoy estate sales, thrift stores, and antique malls as much, or more than, the next person. I know that’s odd for someone who talks about decluttering, but I appreciate the history of items, and I realize that many of these items were special at one time to someone. When you walk through a thrift store, a Goodwill, an estate sale, or a garage sale and look at what seems like randomness with a price tag, I don’t see that. I actually see items that meant something to the person who donated them or who is selling them, because for each item on that table, someone had to make the choice to let it go. That choice is not easy most of the time. One of the reasons that it’s difficult is that we remember who we were at the moment that that item came into our lives. If it’s something from a child of ours, we remember that time of maybe being their mom, and we remember that basketball team they played on. That jersey is not just a jersey. It’s who we were as the mom sitting on the bench cheering for that child who was trying so hard. It represents the practices, the travel, the games, the late meals, the friendships around being on the team and being the parents of players, cheering and screaming from the sidelines and the benches.
Similarly, if we are sitting there looking at an item from a loved one who’s passed, we remember them and we remember being with them, not just the item. It’s not about the pillowcase. It’s about that moment when we were both together, and if it’s about that item in our closet, we may remember when we were a totally different dress size: who we were and how we felt about ourselves. So often we create a conversation around decluttering that centers on: do we need this anymore? Do I even use it? Those are really valid questions, and they come into the conversation, but that’s usually not why it’s so hard to get rid of them, because those are fairly easy questions to answer. Do I use it? No, not really. I pick it up, turn it over, and set it back down. That’s not using it for function. That’s using it to remember. Yes, I kind of use it, but I don’t need it in a functional way, the same as I might need a good frying pan every morning when I make my eggs.
The part of the conversation that sometimes gets left out is the part that says, “Yes, I still do need it because I still want to be able to remember who I was in that relationship at that moment in time and who that person was with me at that moment in time.” This is very much the same as when you buy something on a vacation, a souvenir, or even if it’s a useful item. I personally tend to try to buy something I’ll use, like a scarf or a book that I will remember the vacation with. I also always buy some form of Christmas ornament from every place I’ve been, so that when I decorate my tree every year, it’s a travel log of my life.
For me, if I have a scarf that I bought on vacation, every time I pull it out and I wear it, I feel as if I’m back on vacation. I have all the happy memories of traveling, of being there, of purchasing it, of my family that was with me on that trip, or my friends. It’s not just a scarf that I picked up at the store or TJ Maxx. It’s a whole world attached to the meaning and memory of that.
Equally, it’s to be expected that when the time comes that maybe I don’t need that scarf anymore, or I’m trying to declutter some things, it’s very difficult to part with it. I’m letting go of what it felt like to be on that vacation with those people at that moment in my life.
It shows up in the plans we never finished, too. The fabric we bought for a quilt we were going to make. The treadmill in the corner. The stack of books we were sure we’d read. We tell ourselves we’re keeping these things because we might still get to them. But that’s rarely the real reason. We’re keeping them because they belong to a version of us we’re not ready to say goodbye to. The crafter. The woman who was going to get strong this year. The reader with all the time in the world. Letting the fabric go isn’t about the fabric. It’s about admitting that person isn’t the person we are right now, and that’s a harder thing to set down.
Even the money can work this way. We often think we keep things because we spent good money on them, and it feels wasteful to let them go. But underneath that is something more subtle, that we may not even realize. When we bought it, that purchase said something about who we were. That we were worth it. Or that this thing mattered enough to the woman we were then to be worth the cost. Keeping it isn’t really about protecting the money. It’s about protecting the version of ourselves who decided, in that moment, that we deserved it.
So maybe the question we’ve been asking is the wrong one. “Do I use this?” and “Do I need this?” are easy to answer. The question that helps is a different one. Does keeping this help me step into who I’m becoming, or does it keep me tied to who I used to be? Some things earn their place by that measure. The scarf I still wear, the ornament that goes on the tree every year. Those come forward with me. Other things, we realize, we’ve been keeping to stay loyal to a version of ourselves we’ve already outgrown. And that’s the one that’s finally okay to release.
So, here’s what I’ll leave you with this week. Think again of that one thing you keep picking up and setting back down. Not whether you use it. Ask instead what it’s really telling you, and whether the woman you’re becoming needs to bring it along.
Talk to you next Monday,
Meryl
Part of the Monday with Meryl series.
