Purging the Junk

Our church as an annual yard sale to raise money for the youth mission trips. Or something like that. Truth be told, I don't usually pay a lot of attention to what the money goes to, although I know it's something "youthy" ... mostly I pay attention to the once a year chance to ditch stuff.

In my mind, each year, I will be packing our 15-passenger van FULL of the things that fill our basement, closets, shelves, and extra rooms, and take several trips to the church to pile up our stuff. I will return home to find my home sparse and decluttered, shiny clean, and easy to keep clean and organized.

Only in reality, each year, I pick a few larger items to part with, and then painfully spend hours staring at heaps and piles simply feeling lost. Not wanting to keep all the junk, but somehow not being able to efficiently divide into "keep" "toss" and "give away" ... instead, if I make any progress at all, it is to sort into a giant "don't know" and a giant "keep, I guess" and a tiny little "give away" and a small pile of "toss" ...

I emerge with my tiny piles feeling discouraged and overwhelmed.

It was the fall of '95, I believe, that I first heard of decluttering.

Yes, if you do the math you'll realize I was a grown woman at the time.

I had no idea that people decluttered at all, much less annually (or more often).

My close friend and mentor was telling me about her own personal annual yard sale. I was perplexed. If you didn't buy in order to resell, like our crazy neighbors growing up used to, then how did you get enough junk to have an ANNUAL yard sale? She was equally perplexed. Didn't I go through the house regularly and set aside things that were unused, unloved, or unnecessary, until there was a great pile to get rid of?

Turns out a lot of people DO do that! They don't duct tape their old shoes back together, they throw them out! They don't stockpile family games that no one liked, just in case some day someone decided to play them and DID enjoy them. They give them away! No way!

So that was over 10 years ago.

In those 10 years I have become comfortable with the concept of getting rid of junk. I even hold it up as an ideal -- freeing us from maintaining and storing useless junk will give me more space and time to enjoy the things we do like and need. In theory.

The problem is my ability to declutter is still sorely lacking. I have all the passion for the project. Just very little of the ability. I am so easily overwhelmed and defeated by the *closure* necessary to really choose what goes. Or even where to *start*. In fact, the thing I have grown best at is stockpiling empty boxes with the hopes of filling them with decluttered clutter. My basement is currently full of empty boxes. And ones filled with packing peanuts. Because you never know when you might need them.

Which brings me, many many paragraphs later, to my point.

I'm fast running out of time. The church yard sale is at the end of April. My chance to get rid of my junk without having to fold shirts neatly or guess at prices of things. (Please don't suggest I hold my own. No way! If ALL the work falls to me - not only the painful gut wrenching closure of decluttering but also the organizing, folding, and worst of all pricing, it will never ever get done. I'd rather live in the basement than have to do all that myself. So don't say it. Don't. even. think. it.)

I only have a few weekends left, and several of those are busy. We have a guest coming, and a long weekend away. If I am not careful the chance to declutter will slip away.

I am considering giving the older children independent school work for the rest of this week, and using my "best morning energy" (well, that which I didn't squander blogging, anyway) to work on decluttering. Fortunately my big kids really do work well independently. Unfortunately, I am not sure *I* do. I am a little worried that I will spend my mornings staring blankly at the heaps and heaps of stuff, with little actually making it into boxes and bags that go away.

But even a little would be better than none.

Right?