Feelings, upon preparing to sort through a lifetime of stuff

[bironic]

My dad is what you could affectionately call a pack rat. Or non-affectionately call a high-functioning hoarder as you side-eye the stuff crammed into the attic, crawl spaces, rafters, basement, garage and shed of the otherwise lovely house he's lived in for more than 20 years and now shares with his (understandably distressed) fiancée, E.

Comments

[laurashapiro]

I have a friend who hoards a bit, and when I helped him clear out his videotapes a lot of years ago, what we did was catalog it all. That way he could look at a list and see what he had, and it was easier to deal with an organized piece of paper than piles of VHS boxes stacked to the ceiling. We got rid of a lot of tapes, and everything that we kept was labeled.

For my own purging, I follow the decimate strategy most often. I am a purger as opposed to a pack-rat, so it's not generally hard for me to give stuff up. But when it is, I keep one representative sample and dump the rest.

Donating can be a good motivator for people who are attached to things. If they know it's going to help someone in need, they feel better about letting go of it themselves.

[bironic]

Ah, I like lists/spreadsheets! Will keep that in mind. Thank you. <3

[ignazwisdom]

1. Give the Star Trek paperbacks to me (that one's easy)

2. Break the mess down into small, manageable zones/areas of clutter that can be tackled in NO MORE than 2 hours/each

3. Remember to take breaks and congratulate yourself when you've successfully completed sorting of one of those "zones," because lots of small accomplishments add up to BIG accomplishments

4. Let me know when I can buy you and your sis a drink!!

[ignazwisdom]

Oh, and

5. Resist the urge to just move stuff around without actually making any firm decisions--this is a really easy trap to fall into, and before you know what's happening, you've just spent an hour picking things up and putting them elsewhere and not actually getting rid of a damn thing. I have BEEN THERE, girl.

[bironic]

Ugh, that is going to happen, isn't it? Thank you for tips - all smart.

Emailing you re: #4.

[alpheratz]

My mother is a very "toss it all" kind of person, and I gradually adopted the same attitude. I digitized old photos and put the originals in a small box instead of keeping them in bulky albums, and gave myself one medium plastic tub to keep sentimental things - stuff from graduations and my childhood, a few old journals, etc. I'm really ruthless about books. Ebooks and libraries exist, and if I find myself really wanting an old book in the future I can afford to repurchase it.

I think your idea of taking photos and writing down the memories is a good one. I think it replaces the need for a physical object quite well.

[bironic]

Thanks! I've been (I'd like to think) good about controlling accumulation since I moved away, which helps me believe I'm not headed for the same situation as my dad, but still. Books are hardest; there's a sense-memory of holding certain ones, of knowing who gave them to me, of remembering who & where I was when I first read them. Hopefully I'll be able to be smart about those, and about whatever else turns up!