American homes are bursting at the seams with stuff. It’s understandable. Having lots of stuff can be comforting, and I’ve always felt that it’s fine as long as you can keep it under control. Control is tough, though, especially when you have limited storage space, and it gets harder over time, as more stuff accrues. Having hoarding tendencies doesn’t help, as I’ve learned from my own experience.
Luckily for me, I have ways of dealing with my “hoardering” nature. For example, I often use my blog and camera as ways of capturing my feelings about things so that I can let the things themselves go. Another classic method is to cull small pieces of the things that resonate with me so that I can throw away the rest. Were it not for that, I’d struggle to donate my old books (or even return certain borrowed books to the library), and there would be towering stacks of magazines all over my home.
Still, even the parts pile up eventually, and that’s where I’m at now. I have a huge, unruly stack of photocopies and ripped-out magazine pages containing poems, cartoons, quotes, and articles that interest me. I need to deal with them before the situation gets any worse. Some will go into folders for miscellaneous creative purposes. Some will go into scrapbooks. Some will become the basis for blog posts and then be thrown away. And some will just go into the recycling; I have limited patience for the task, and once it’s exhausted, stuff suddenly seems less interesting and easier to discard. That’s all part of the process, perhaps the best part.
Now it’s time to get on with it. Wish me luck!