Letting Go of Possessions - Part of the Decluttering Process

© Beverley Paine

I wish I had the guts to let go of the need to keep everything so pristine perfect when I was younger and began enjoying a lot of my precious stored stuff so much earlier...

I remember one set of special glasses etched with roses that I kept for 20 years under wraps and finally decided to use when I figured the kids were old enough not to break them. It wasn't the kids I should have worried about but the stupidity of making glasses so thin in the first place! I think all six were broken while being dried... too much pressure with the tea towel!

The day I began to feel liberated from the need to be over-protective towards objects was when I broke a lovely piece of jewellery I had bought a year before. A cut quartz crystal with golden rutile crystals crisscrossing the prism, it reminded me of my daughter's hair and of my childhood excursions looking for similar rocks with my family. I dropped it on the bathroom tiles and smashed a corner of the prism. "Oh well" I said, totally suprised that I didn't feel unbelievably guilty and ashamed at my clumsiness, as I was accustomed to feeling... I picked it up, had a little dance around the room as I didn't feel wretched and realised I'd turned a corner in life - at last!

It's taken me another dozen years to feel comfortable with damaging, breaking, scratching, using, wearing and tearing the rest of my possessions!

Life is too short not to celebrate by having those things that bring us joy, if even for a moment, every day.

A friend recently commented on the joy of bringing out of storage much loved items - like photographs or gifts - and how all too often when left in constant view the magic of these items disappears into the background and eventually we fail to notice them. Storing can bring back that special feeling we first experienced with the item. This is true, too. From a homeschooling perspective I found it extremely useful to 'rotate' toys, books and learning materials, even art and craft materials. When the stored items are brought out on display they usually sparked a great deal of creativity and imaginative play. There is something powerful about 'novelty'; that awakening of the senses to experience with freshness old treasures!

See also Beverley's othe article on decluttering: How I Got Rid of the Mess in my Life