Clutter tale

After my Dad passed away, I was the family’s obvious choice for clearing his papers and personal effects. “You are the lawyer…you know best what papers to keep and what to throw,” seemed the justification. Dad had practised for well over fifty years and I belonged to a family loathed throwing away anything.

My first stop was at his gigantic mahogany desk with its myriad drawers, niches and cubbyholes. In its top-drawers were several rows of fountain pens, pencils and sundry stationery, most of them unused. Below were several bundles of yellowed envelopes and bags that he had saved probably for being re-used. Shelves teemed with vintage issues of magazines and newspaper cuttings not to count the tomes of court papers indexed and filed. With perhaps the exception of his prescription white shirts, almost every new shirt was lying unused, preserved in its pristine newness. Dad seemed to have bequeathed to us his lifetime’s clutter!

We have all had moments when we found our wardrobes bursting, when drawers wouldn’t shut, and when mindless online buys wormed their way into our space. We hesitate to throw away something and unmindfully add to our excess. We keep things in the hope that they may come of use another day or to simply cling on to a memory that they may evoke. “We spend most of our time in our homes than anywhere else, so why not make it our sanctuary?” asks Marie Kondo.

In the coming months, we cleared and gave away almost every bit of Dad’s possessions and collectables, what he had probably saved to gift or use on an opportune day that never seemed to have come. A few years later my Kondo moment arrived when I set up home in a smaller space. I instinctively knew it was time to dump my own clutter collected over the years. I was ready to discard anything that no longer sparked joy in my life.

For a fleeting moment I ruefully gazed at the brimming cartons and reminded myself that this was actually money a while ago. Nevertheless, I mercilessly gave away every bit of my clutter collection without discrimination to anyone willing to take them. Tidying from then on has become therapeutic. Clothes and shoes not worn for over six months have no place in my space anymore. No more newspaper cuttings for me. I jettison unread books ruthlessly. The progress has been steady and the feeling, light and easy. I celebrate “Boxing Day” frequently and happily atone for the follies of all my hoarded stress.