Spring Cleaning & De-Cluttering

Spring cleaning – how seriously do you take this and do it? Do you just change the clothes in your closet or are you actually going from room to room and changing curtains, bedspreads, rugs and decorations? What about purging and de-cluttering? Is this part of your spring cleaning ritual?

This past week I had every room in my home except for my office painted, it gave me the opportunity to de-clutter and purge as I changed my curtains, bedspreads and rugs. I know for many people it might be difficult to rid yourself of things and to give yourself more room; but, I am very comfortable with not keeping mementoes.

I am sure this all stems from my childhood. For the first nine years of my life we lived in apartments in Manhattan and the Bronx and apartments in New York unless you are paying millions are not very large. My mother did not keep anything. There were no baby clothes, a favorite blankie or toy, no school items that I had made for my Mother for either Christmas or Mother’s Day. My Mother always cleaned and threw things out if they did not have a use.

When I graduated from college I would move every couple of years – it made it a lot easier to not become attached to anything and to “purge” myself of anything that was not useful – the less to move from one place to the other was the goal. I always looked to be able to place everything in my car and make one trip.

I realized how much I am missing – I have very few pictures of my Mother, I do not have any of her jewelry, clothes or any of her favorite things. Somehow I managed to have a couple of her report cards from elementary school. It was quite devastating that on the day we buried my Mother, much of my father’s family went ahead and availed themselves of her clothes and jewelry. That is okay – I carry my Mother in my memories and not in her “things”.

The last couple of weeks my cousin has been doing the same thing – he has lived in the same house for 27 years and they have never really gone through all the things in the house. We came upon our Grandmother’s diploma from stenography school – we were both shocked – we never realized that our Grandmother was that educated. We knew her as a woman who had 6 daughters, whose husband, my grandfather left her when she had the 6th daughter, she saw one of her daughters die at the age of 14; and, both she and one of her daughters went through ovarian cancer simultaneously – she died at the age of 59; while her daughter was a cancer survivor for over 40 years.

I do believe in purging and de-cluttering your home of the unnecessary. I just gave away to Goodwill a set of Lenox china which I have had for 20 years and never used. Several serving platters all in white – my dishes are varied in color and I have matching platters – I have never used the white ones. There are many individuals who will be able to make good use of them. Yesterday my Goodwill donation consisted of 7 boxes of housewares/linens, a full set of Hartmann luggage, binoculars and a camcorder – much of this which I never used.

I feel much lighter and more in control of my space. This past Friday morning as Mother Nature was playing her April Fool’s joke on the Northeast – I went into my storage area and cleaned every one of my storage bins and organized them for each of the holidays. My gym friend, Linda thinks I am a bit of a nutcase; but, I know that I will be saving myself much aggravation when it is time to decorate for the holidays as I won’t be guessing which bin has what.

As I continued to clean some draws out today (okay for me it becomes an obsession) – I found all the birthday cards from my 50th birthday. I am keeping them – I reread the sentiments and I remember what a good time we all had. So while I do believe in ridding ourselves of much of the clutter, the items that we don’t use and to put our homes in order – I do miss that I don’t have any cards from my Mother, that I don’t have a letter that lets me know her thoughts, what she loved, what she was afraid of and how she managed to love us above all else.

As you do your spring cleaning and you de-clutter determine what is kept and what either is thrown out or donated. Although we each have our memories nothing lets us know another individual’s thoughts like a letter or a card; or, their accomplishments like a diploma or an award.

Treasure who you are and where you come from; not what you can buy.