Retrospective

Ok. The point of critical mass happens to coincide with spring cleaning – and so with today’s sunshine, the Romano family began a series of projects. Some worked outside; my job was an indoor one.

After reading about de-cluttering, watching Oprah’s “Clean Up Your Messy House Tour” and knowing of our need to downsize before we get the house on the market to sell, I realized this afternoon that I just needed to get started on some of the worse areas of the place. So, after a brief internet coaching session…”I think I can, I think I can” …I got started.

I read something that stuck with me – pick up an item, look at it and make a split second decision to get it out of your hand. Keep it or give it away. Period. Don’t bargain with yourself, don’t invent a purpose for it, just decide.

This little piece of wisdom served me well as I began tackle a closet literally vomiting at the doorway with clothes. Seriously, door open, clothes were pouring out of it. Some years ago, one of my sorority sisters showed me her closet and I’d never seen anything like it – clothes were above our shoulders piled up in there. I never thought I’d see a closet like that again – but in the past year, that closet has materialized in my home. I hate it. It’s embarrassing and I’m over it. Mine is not technically as bad as hers was, but it is bad enough that I’d die if Oprah showed up at my door and wanted to see it.

I’m a very social person and I’ve come to the conclusion that my whole house’s level of clutter (not just my closet) is keeping me from being the hostess, the entertainer, the mom who has everyone’s kids over and the carefree individual I tend to be in every other area of my life. I rarely entertain in my home because the idea of exposing anyone to the clutter is absolutely horrifying to me.

My sister pinned me well a year ago when she gave me a little badge reading “packrat.” I have a rational purpose in my mind for keeping things, and usually it has something to do with the thought I might need it later. Today, I decided this: if I needed it later, I’ll go buy a new one. I can do that.

I get so overwhelmed when deciding to tackle the mound of clothes that I didn’t even want to get started before today, but when I decided to use the advice about quick decisions AND another piece of advice, it was enough incentive to get started. The second piece of wisdom was this: give yourself 15-30 minutes and then stop. Go do something else for awhile.

I plugged away at the closet for a little over a half an hour, heaving a giant mound of clothes in a 30-gallon can. I marveled at all those clothes representing what seems like an entirely different life than I live today – suits, dresses, you name it. I tossed and I flung them all away. It was actually kind of liberating to toss the stuff I had to have when I worked a job that insisted I have that sort of clothing. It was all so not me – and so it didn’t even pain me to get rid of it.

A little while ago I came up with a goal – and I hope my friends who read this will help coach me to keep it going: I’m going to fill that 30-gallon can each day and donate the contents to one of the two local small businesses who accept it: Mary Ellen’s Closet and Julie’s New Sensation. They are both owned by local people (Gary Grepke and Julie Weigold, respectively) and support our local economy. I like that and I’m choosing to support them. As much as I love a good garage sale, I can’t do one – I have no time for all the work that goes into executing one. Plus, I think the added time keeping things in my possession would not help with the purging that needs done.

I think I’ll give my cousin, Jeanne, a call. She’s amazing. She has the most impressive ability to tackle even the worst of messes and reign in the disaster. She’s also good at directing me on where to go and what to do next with regards to de-cluttering. I have told her before that she needs to start her own business doing this for people because she’s seriously good at it. I hope I can convince her to help me out.

On some level, I guess I hope that “airing my laundry” – in this case flinging open the door to my hideous closet so that all of you can understand just how bad it is will help me tackle it. Ask me about it. Bug me about it. Don’t let me forget that I need to get it and the 47,000 other random, unneeded items out of my home.

The end result of all this cleaning, donating and de-cluttering is this: I hope that in a few weeks, my house will be ready to sell.