8 Reasons You Can’t Get Rid of Your Stuff

Do you wrestle with these excuses for not getting rid of your stuff? I do…all the time. But we all want to feel more connected to the people around us, not to our stuff. We write in our book, and in our blog posts, how to push through and get rid of stuff but sometimes a pithy quote gives us a new perspective. Here’s some interesting advice from others.

I might need this some day.

Or maybe you feel it’s too good to throw away.

Someone said, “Once you need less, you will have more.” Give away the stuff that still has life in it, find new homes for these things and you will feel like you have more than you need.

I feel guilty for wasting money by getting rid of things.

The money won’t come back whether you save the item or give it away. Guilt is just an emotion that clutters your head. As Big Panda said when the leaves were falling from the trees in a James Norbury book, “Don’t be sad. Autumn is nature’s way of showing us how beautiful letting go can be.”

I’ll save this for my daughter or my son or my niece.

The next generation – in fact, the next two generations – do not want our stuff. Our best gift to them is to leave our things in manageable order. As Leonard Cohen said, “Putting your house in order, if you can do it, is one of the most comforting activities, and the benefits of it are incalculable.”

I have such good memories of this.

All those memories!

The memories exist in our hearts and our souls not in material things. Keep the memories, absolutely. Take pictures, write down stories, record your thoughts for yourself and for future generations. As we say in our book, “Keep the memories, get rid of the stuff.”

It belonged to my mom (or my dad or my grandmother).

C.S. Lewis said, “We are who we believe we are.” If we believe we are our mother’s child, we are. And we hold our mother inside ourselves. If we believe we are our grandfather’s grandchild, then we are. We keep our loved ones inside us, on our hearts and in our memories. Parting with items that belonged to our parents or our grandparents is just that, getting rid of items. It is not getting rid of the people who the items once belonged to. Intellectually that’s not a difficult concept but emotionally it’s a leap. We can make that leap!

I’m saving it for a special occasion.

Or maybe you’re keeping it for “some day.” Use it now. Wear the elegant dress (if you own one!), use the fancy china. Follow the advice of Mary Engelbreit, “Don’t save anything for a special occasion. Being alive is a special occasion.”

I just don’t have the time.

Marcel Proust said, “Love is space and time made perceptible to the heart.” Time is a gift to our loved ones. If you love your family, if you love yourself, you will find the time to declutter your stuff, not all at once but bit by bit.

I’m feeling overwhelmed. All the stuff!

As we say in our book, just start. Anywhere. Do the easy things first. As Lao Tzu said, “A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.” Just take one step.

As a final quote. A crew member of Junk Vets said, after cleaning out a house, “Once you turn fifty you should just have to start giving away things.”

≈Linda Hetzer is an editor and author of books on home design, crafts, and food, and coauthor of Moving On: A Practical Guide to Downsizing the Family Home.

Helping a Parent Enter a Nursing Home

Family. The holidays are all about family. And this year we can actually get together with family and friends, such a wonderful change from last year!

As we celebrate family traditions – or create new ones – the time spent with loved ones can provide us with an opportunity to observe the older members. How are they doing? Could they benefit from more help at home or is it time to think about a nursing home.

This month we have the privilege of a guest post from Millie Jones, creator of the website SeniorWellness.

Millie Jones created SeniorWellness as a way to inspire older generations – including her own – to embrace their wellness throughout their golden years. Her goal for the site is that it will help people of all ages feel young at heart. Millie’s favorite activity is playing with her grandkids but she can be found writing, taking photos (film not digital, of course), and putting both those skills to use via scrapbooking. 

Today Millie offers helpful tips and many resources if you have a parent who needs to enter a nursing home.

Assisting a parent who needs the services offered by a nursing home can be a difficult process. You must assess the benefits and drawbacks of any community you consider.

Looking for a Nursing Home

Nursing homes vary wildly in quality and condition. Be thorough when reading reviews, tour several nursing homes, and meet with caregivers and other staff members. Following are some important steps to take:

• Assess the cost. Make sure your parent can realistically afford to pay the monthly fees and related expenses.
• Evaluate the staff-to-resident ratio. More caregivers in comparison to the number of residents typically lead to a higher quality of care.
• Visit the community. Care providers can say anything online, and reviews may be unreliable. Visiting the community is the only way to assess the quality of life for yourself.
• Ask about the amenities. The amenities available at a nursing home, such as the types of common rooms, therapy programs, and events and activities, have a profound effect on residents’ enjoyment of the community.

Paying for Care

The cost of nursing home care often catches families by surprise. Depending on the specific services the parent needs, rental prices can range drastically from month to month. Assistance is available, however, so assess federal and state programs to evaluate your options.

Consider Selling Your Parents’ Home

Many seniors run into problems financing nursing home care due to the cost. Selling a primary residence or other property can be a way to come up with the money necessary for long-term care. Before listing a home, make sure it’s ready to sell and likely to command a worthwhile price.

• Update the home. Often, seniors have older homes that need fixtures, surfaces, and appliances replaced to appeal to more buyers.
• Repair damage. Fix broken appliances and damaged infrastructure, replace broken windows and leaky pipes, and correct potential safety hazards before listing the property for best results.
• Compromise if necessary. Getting into a nursing home may be time-sensitive, so consider the lowest amount you’re willing to accept for the property.

Helping the Other Parent Adjust

While one parent is preparing to enter a nursing home, the other must make important life changes as well. They may want to downsize if the home they shared with their significant other now feels too large or if it’s become hard for them to navigate. Some continuing care facilities include companion suites where both parties can keep living with each other while one receives the care they need.

Consider Their Feelings

Moving into a nursing home is a big decision and can be highly stressful for everyone involved. Be patient with a parent who says they’re not ready. Parents moving into nursing homes often feel they’ve lost a significant degree of independence and may become sad about losing their home or regular routines. Many nursing homes have therapy programs and psychiatrists available to help residents who become anxious or depressed in the new settings.

Make Sure They’re Happy

Once you’ve handled the financial aspects and dealt with the personal challenges of entering a nursing home, keep an eye on the parent in the nursing home. Their needs may evolve over time, so consider all your options, including switching facilities, as necessary.

Thank you, Millie.

Happy Holidays to all.

≈Linda Hetzer is an editor and author of books on home design, crafts, and food, and coauthor of Moving On: A Practical Guide to Downsizing the Family Home.

Letting Go

My mother at her wedding in 1944

This is not the post I was planning to write ay this time. And it’s certainly not a post I want to write but it’s a story that needs to be told.

We had a flood.

Hurricane Ida, which devastated parts of New Orleans, headed north and merged with a front to wreak havoc in the Northeast. In New York City, subways were shut down overnight, the first time since Hurricane Sandy in 2012, due to flash flooding.

As a result of a somewhat freaky turn of events, we had a flood coming in from our neighbor’s terrace and apartment. The force of the water overwhelmed her terrace, came flooding through her apartment and out into the hallway. The water came through the wall we share with her apartment, which is our bedroom, dressing room, and my closet, and it continued into our linen closet. What a mess.

In my closet, I had my mother’s and my aunt’s wedding dresses. The flood damaged the hem of my mother’s dress and completely ruined the long train on my aunt’s dress. What did I do with the dresses? After they dried out, I took them to fabric recycling.

Don’t judge me, at least not yet. I had done due diligence on the 1940s dresses years ago, trying to donate them to the local historical society in the area where they got married. The woman said everyone wants to donate vintage wedding dresses and they only want it if you have things that go with it. Well, I had everything because my mother saved everything: the engagement announcement in the newspaper, the wedding announcement, the wedding invitation, even the place cards for my grandparents. More than just a dress, there was a story there. The woman seemed interested but never got back to me. As the dresses were drying out, I researched to see if I could find someone who made new dresses out of parts of old ones, and I couldn’t find anyone.

I decided to let the dresses go. Was that hard? Yes, but it was also a relief. Did I feel okay after donating personal items with such a profound family history? Yes and no. The practical side of me wishes someone could have used the fabric to create something new. (I still hope someone creative trolls the fabric recycling warehouse and finds them.) The sentimental side of me is at peace with my decision. I have to clean up the apartment to make it safe for my family and that is more important than saving sentimental items.

My husband’s decision was to let go of two antiques items that belonged to his parents. They were both in the living room and not affected by the flood, but it was time to part with them. One was a small end table and matching chair that he put on Craigslist and sold right away. The second is a Hitchcock style chair that he will list soon.

We are letting go of these items and we are content with our decision. (Why did we have these items for so long? Well, that’s a topic for another post.)

We’re just happy to be letting go. As Maya Angelou said, “We need much less than we think we need.”

≈Linda Hetzer is an editor and author of books on home design, crafts, and food, and coauthor of Moving On: A Practical Guide to Downsizing the Family Home.

My five favorite books about downsizing

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Here, in no particular order (because it depends on what you’re looking for at any one time, and to be honest, I don’t like rating things numerically) are my five favorite books about downsizing and decluttering.

Year of No Clutter: A Memoir by Eve Schaub. Here’s what I said about the book when I first wrote about it. “With refreshing–even brave–honesty, with sensitivity and self-deprecating wit, Eve tells the story of how that year went, and how her family helped her–more or less–achieve her goal. Her book is not only entertaining–in fact, often laugh-out-loud funny–and deeply insightful, it is full of practical ideas that will be helpful for the keepers of this world who are trying to talk themselves into getting rid of things, and the loved ones who are either helping them, or looking on in horror and trying not to interrupt.” For my interview with Eve, click here.

Clutter: An Untidy History, by Jennifer Howard. This book is a recent publication, and here’s what I said about it when I reviewed it last month: “,,,a wonderful new book for anyone who is interested in the topic of emptying an extremely cluttered family home, especially for those who have not only a practical, but an intellectual interest in it. It is, among other things, a fascinating and very thorough study of the history of clutter… It is also a personal memoir that recounts the author’s own experience of emptying her mother’s home of ’50 years worth of detritus,’ a process that she describes (bravely, and honestly) with words such as ‘disgust’ and ‘horror.’..She asks, and attempts to answer, a number of key questions about cluttering and hoarding (and never loses sight of the fact that these are not interchangeable terms). One of the key questions she asks is, whose fault is it?” You can read the rest of my review here.

No Thanks Mom! The Top Ten Things Your Kids DO NOT Want (and what to do with them) by Elizabeth Stewart. This author brings her expertise in appraising art and antiques to discussing the by now pretty well known “generation gap” between baby boomers and their millennial offspring when it comes to what to do with all those precious family heirlooms. She also shares her personal experience of running up against that same generation gap in her own family when she discovered to her chagrin that all the special things she had been saving for her son were truly not wanted! The sub-subtitle gives a clue as to why this book is so valuable in terms of practical advice. You can read my interview with Elizabeth here.

Can’t We Talk About Something More Pleasant? by Roz Chast. This book is not strictly about downsizing and decluttering, though there’s plenty about those topics in it, and as always Roz Chast has a way of making me (and millions of others) smile ruefully about all those things that life offers to be rueful about. My coauthor reviewed this book, along with several others, focusing on the caregiver aspect of the book. You can read her review here.

Moving On: A Practical Guide to Downsizing the Family Home by Linda Hetzer and Janet Hulstrand (yes, that’s me!) I was definitely brought up to not “toot my own horn,” but really how could I not include my (our) book on this list? First published in 2004, with an updated e-book edition published in 2013, our book was one of the first to tackle this topic in the comprehensive way we did, and to say something besides “just get rid of it.” 🙂 And although some things have changed in the years since we first published it, we’ve been told by those who have used it in their own families that one of the strengths of our book remains a kind of timeless wisdom as well as helpful, practical tips that offer ways for what we call the “keepers” and the “throwers” of this world to find common ground and maintain mutual respect as they seek to “get rid of the stuff, keep the memories, maintain family peace, and get on with [their lives].”

Janet Hulstrand is a writer, editor, writing coach, and teacher. She is coauthor of Moving On: A Practical Guide to Downsizing the Family Home and author of Demystifying the French: How to Love Them, and Make Them Love You. 

How Wide is Your Window of Tolerance?

A statue of Peter Stuyvesant wearing appropriate PPE.

New times bring new thoughts, or how do we adapt to the times we’re now living in? Several terms are cropping up in social media that can help us rethink and perhaps better understand what we’re going through.

And one of them is not a new definition of cranky people. Cranky still means “given to fretfulness, easily angered, ill-tempered, grouchy, cross.” Sound familiar? Sheltering at home is not always easy. Sometimes resilience is just putting one foot in front of the other.

Someone has asked, “How wide does your window of tolerance have to be?” Window of tolerance, a term coined by Daniel J. Siegel, MD, a psychiatrist, is defined as the zone in which people are able to function most effectively.

“When a person is within their window of tolerance, it is generally the case that the brain is functioning well and can effectively process stimuli. That person is likely to be able to reflect, think rationally, and make decisions calmly without feeling either overwhelmed or withdrawn.”

How wide does our window of tolerance have to be for us to adapt to the disconnection and solitude we are experiencing, to being alone and not having the company of family and friends? What can we do so we don’t feel overwhelmed and withdrawn, which are legitimate feelings in these times. Much food for thought.

One of the ways in which we can be more tolerant of our situation is that we are now better able to see what is essential, another current meme. We now know we don’t need things, we need people, so the media is telling us. It makes me smile, a bit ruefully, that my coauthor and I have been talking about this for nearly two decades, as have others involved in the world of downsizing and decluttering. But now it seems that our message if being heard, loud and clear, by a newer and bigger audience.

What do I miss most? A friend says she can’t wait to invite us over for tea and cookies (she’s a great baker) and I can’t wait to accept her invitation. I would like the library to reopen, even if it’s just to pick up books. And I would love to get a haircut. I would like to greet my favorite people at the farmers market from a distance closer than 6 feet. I don’t miss going to the theater as much as I thought I would, maybe because there is so much available online. I don’t miss in-person meetings (although video conferencing is getting to be a drag). I would love to get on public transportation so I could visit loved ones who are a train ride away.

This need to rethink our lives brings us another new term, or rather an old term that has found new relevance: a circular economy. What this means is to reuse or recirculate what you have.

In practical terms, it means to darn your socks (as my coauthor pointed out a few weeks ago), patch your jeans, wear clothes until they wear out or pass them along to someone who will. It’s a world of wearing hand-me-down clothes, fixing electronics when possible to make them last longer, borrowing books from the library (which is not possible right now) or sharing your books and jigsaw puzzles with others. It’s a world of eating leftovers, not wasting food. It’s making protective face masks from old t-shirts. It’s carrying a bag with you when you shop, being willing to forego the free plastic shopping bags. It’s a world where we care more about the planet and its people than we do about what we can get or own or have.

We widen our window of tolerance, which helps us see that people matter more than things and that makes us more caring of the world around us.

Stay safe. Stay well. Keep sharing what you have.

Linda Hetzer is an editor and author of books on home design, crafts, and food, and coauthor of Moving On: A Practical Guide to Downsizing the Family Home. 

Reading About Downsizing During Quarantine

There are of course many things you could read during a period of quarantine, and happily many people are using this opportunity to do so.

There are also many things one could be doing during such a period, especially things related to the process of decluttering and downsizing. I wrote recently about some of those things here.

And there are lots of books about downsizing that you could read when you need a break from the actual doing of it. Here are a few of my favorites:

Can We Talk About Something More Pleasant? (Roz Chast) 

Caring for Your Family Treasures: Heritage Preservation (Jane S. Long)

No Thanks, Mom (Elizabeth Stewart)

A Year of No Clutter (Eve O. Schaub)

Stuff: Compulsive Hoarding and the Meaning of things (Randy Frost and Gail Steketee) 

There’s also a new, and very interesting book out now: Secondhand: Travels in the Global Garage Sale, by Adam Minter.  

Of course, my coauthor and I hope you will also consider buying our book. The latest version is the e-book, which you can buy here.

Stay safe, stay well, happy reading, and happy downsizing!

Janet Hulstrand is a writer, editor, writing coach, and teacher. She is coauthor of Moving On: A Practical Guide to Downsizing the Family Home and author of Demystifying the French: How to Love Them, and Make Them Love You. 

Decluttering Lessons Learned: Dealing with Ephemera

I’m not sure, but I think maybe one of the things very few people recognize is that downsizing doesn’t happen just once.

Ideally, it’s going on kind of all the time. Or at least decluttering is.

Unless, of course, you are an extreme “keeper.” (Or a hoarder, but this post is not about hoarding. It is about how to keep from being an extreme keeper, which is not the same thing as a hoarder, not at all.) More about that, perhaps, another day…

The way I have been learning to do this is by a) writing a book about downsizing with my coauthor; b) trying to follow the advice we developed for our readers in helping our dads with their first round of downsizing in my subsequent rounds of same; and c) refining the advice we developed as I continue to learn from the protracted experience of finding homes for, or getting rid of, or otherwise dealing with the many many (many!) things that were stored in my parents’ home for many years. (Both my Mom and Dad, and both of my grandmothers, were extreme keepers. Those of you who come from families of “keepers” will know what this means…)

One of the experts I interviewed for our book was Mona Nelson, the director of a county historical society in Minnesota. When I asked her what kinds of things she wished people wouldn’t throw out when they were clearing out a house full of things that had been stored there for many years, she picked up a greeting card from her desk, and said, “This kind of thing. Ephemera.” She went on to explain that old tickets, theater programs, greeting cards and the like can be of great interest to museums and historical societies, and that rather than just toss old things like that into a dumpster, one might better take it to a local historical society or museum to see if they would like to have it.

While this is good advice for anyone who is a) going through a house in which there is a lot of such material that is already very old (let’s say 50 years or more, just as a loose, unofficial figure); and who is in a position of having the time and the means to get those boxes of ephemera from the house to the museum (or wherever).

Being of an archival mindset already, that conversation stayed with me for quite a while and compelled me to a) try to arrange to get such things to such places as I came across them in my continuing downsizing adventure; and b) to continue to hold onto such things as I received them. (It does not come naturally to many writers, and I would think most, or all, archivists, to casually toss such things into either trash or recycling…)

But the reality for me is that I really am not in a situation, nor do I have the means to contribute these kinds of things to such places anymore; or the space in which to hold onto the ones that I am accruing all the time.

Therefore, I have developed a new way of dealing with such things.

A couple of months ago I was finally able to roll up my sleeves and attack a box of old letters and cards that had been saved by my mom (and dad). In the same box as the letters my parents wrote to each other when they were first courting were a bunch of get-well cards that my mom had received during her final illness, and sympathy cards for my dad after she died.

For now I have kept all the correspondence between them, and am slowly reading it. To me this is an obvious thing to do, especially since I am writing a memoir which will include their stories as well as mine, and reading their letters is giving me valuable insight into the lives they lived before I came along.

The get-well and sympathy cards and letters I looked through: most of them had something nice to say about my parents. I read and appreciated these thoughts; and then I recycled the cards. I didn’t need to keep them anymore: the main takeaway was that my mom (and dad) had been deeply loved and greatly appreciated by a great many people. This is something I already knew, but it was nice to be reminded once again, and to know that my dad had had the support of a lot of people–friends, neighbors, my mom’s coworkers–in a very rough time for him.

And what about the continuing incoming stream of such material that I receive now, that I received in 2019, for example? I display the cards in my home for a while, and enjoy them very much. After the season is over, I may save one or two that have especially special messages in them. I also save Christmas cards from my sister and my cousin that are newsy enough for me to think that they (or their kids) will one day enjoy having this “slice of life” to help them remember the everyday details of another time …and I put them aside to be returned to them every few years.

As for the rest, I save the fronts of especially pretty cards that have nothing written on the back, to be used as festive holiday notes next year. I read the personal messages once again, I savor and appreciate them; and then I recycle the cards. (Those that can be recycled, that is: pretty as it is , we probably need to all stop buying cards with glitter, you know? Because it’s not recyclable… 😦  )

It will never be easy for me to get rid of such things: it’s just not in my nature. But I have to come to feel that this method allows me to make the most of these special things and fully appreciate them; and head off that inevitable moment in which, if I don’t do it, someone else will be forced to simply throw them away without having the chance to pay them this respect.

Janet Hulstrand is a writer, editor, writing coach, and teacher. She is coauthor of Moving On: A Practical Guide to Downsizing the Family Home and author of Demystifying the French: How to Love Them, and Make Them Love You. 

 

Thanksgiving Thoughts…

As Thanksgiving approaches (and with it the unofficial beginning of the holiday season) it seems like a good time to not only give thanks for our blessings, but take a deep breath and the time to consider how we can made the upcoming holidays more meaningful, less stressful, and ultimately more rewarding.

We have reflected on some of the ways to do this over the past nine years on this blog. It’s interesting to notice that in those years certain things have changed. For example, there has been an interesting evolution in the observation of Black Friday: it’s no longer all about sales. Many companies, noting a tendency of things to get out of hand, have even closed their stores on that day, urging people to instead use the extra day to spend time with family, or enjoy nature, or give back to others.

It’s also gotten easier to make holiday celebrations more “green,” whether by recycling old holiday lights or thinking more carefully about how to wrap gifts.

And of course there is always the question of how to keep the holidays from forcing us into habits of overconsumption, while still finding ways to present our friends and family with thoughtful gifts.

Here are a few of the posts we’ve written over the years to help our readers think of ways to make the holiday season special but also more ecological, calmer, less stressed. Because some of these posts are a few years old, some of the details and links may be a bit out of date, and of course some of the information varies from location to location. But hopefully these posts will inspire you to seek out ways to make your holidays more meaningful, more “green,” and less stressful.

https://downsizingthehome.wordpress.com/2015/12/04/wishing-you-green-peaceful-holidays/

https://downsizingthehome.wordpress.com/2015/11/06/talking-turkey-about-downsizing-at-the-holidays/

https://downsizingthehome.wordpress.com/2018/12/21/caught-at-the-last-minute-without-a-gift-no-youre-not/

https://downsizingthehome.wordpress.com/2017/12/15/tis-the-season-to-givewith-gifts-that-make-a-difference/

https://downsizingthehome.wordpress.com/2015/11/20/giving-thanks-and-giving-back/

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

Janet Hulstrand is a writer, editor, writing coach, and teacher. She is coauthor of Moving On: A Practical Guide to Downsizing the Family Home and author of Demystifying the French: How to Love Them, and Make Them Love You. 

 

A Downsizing Story: Tom and Anita

Two years ago Tom and Anita decided to retire from their jobs: Anita had worked for many years for the federal government, and Tom was in the aerospace industry. They also decided to sell their sprawling, 6,00-square-foot Tudor home in suburban Washington D.C. As it is for many people, downsizing was for them a somewhat tumultuous adventure. Two and a half months after they had finally settled into a much smaller home (2,800 square feet), Anita kindly agreed to share their story with the readers of this blog. Our interview follows. Janet Hulstrand

Janet: How long had you been in your home before you went through your big downsizing experience? When and why did you decide to make this move?

Anita: First of all, when we bought our house we weren’t buying just a house: we were really looking for a particular lifestyle. We wanted our home to be a charming, green sanctuary, yet it had to also be urban and walkable. When we brought our twin babies home from the hospital it was to a Capitol Hill rowhouse that I had begun renovating as a single person where I lived with a giant Olde English Sheepdog. Somewhere along the way amidst renovations and both floor and wall demolitions, I met Tom. We married and had twin daughters. The sheepdog was delighted as his loving pack grew. And I got big, fast!

It took us two years to find our charming Tudor home, with a spring-fed creek, flower boxes brimming with seasonal delights, a bridge, and a garden. Inside there was room for lots of books, and nooks and crannies in which to read. We lived happily in this home for more than 25 years. We renovated, decorated, and it doubled in size, Eventually the house was larger than what we needed: unbelievably, our daughters grew up and moved away, the sheepdog died, and the house needed a new bustling family.

Janet: What was the experience like for you, in a word? Or maybe in three words?

Anita: The experience defies words. But Emotional Purging Tornado comes to mind. It was a tornado of emotions as we desperately went about getting rid of possessions. It took over a year to get the house on the market: hundreds of books, gone; armoires, gone; bookshelves, gone; baby grand, gone; tons of clothes, gone; CDs, gone; furniture and orientals, gone; paintings, gone. Finally a slimmed-down, Pottery-Barned version of our whitewashed house went on the market, and then it didn’t sell for three whole summer months. So we took it off the market while we traveled the world. When we came back we put it on the market again in the spring, and this time it sold in two days, with a bidding war.

Janet: What was most difficult about the experience?

Anita: I think the most difficult thing was realizing that the life I had always wanted, I had had: the family, the dog, the white picket fence, and now it was over. I never imagined this incredible sense of loss I would feel: yet it was a success: our daughters grew up and became who they were meant to be; and it took them away from home.

Janet: I know that at a certain point you were planning to put all of your things in storage and travel for a while, but you changed your mind about that. Why did that change?

Anita: After we took our house off the market, we traveled for 100 days straight: 12 countries, 22 flights, and we loved it. But after the traveling was over, we had a home to come home to. We had planned to put everything in storage and do it again, but the realization that we would not have an address, or a home, a place to put the few things we were keeping felt logistically complicated. And, financially, having some money in a house made sense to us.

Janet: Do you have any words of advice, comfort, or wisdom for boomers about to take this step?

Anita: My new advice is, don’t do it: die in the house and let the kids do it, like my parents did! It’s painful, exhausting, and two and a half months after the hell of moving, I still can’t bring myself to drive by my old house. I cried at the closing and my real estate agent cried when she saw me cry. There were so many happy memories attached to that house: and crises, too. So, there’s that.

Janet: What do you think about Marie Kondo’s advice now? Did your opinion of her and her advice change in the process of this move?

Anita: I did read the book. I’m still waiting for the joy! I actually was mad at her.

Janet: How do you feel generally now, as you are beginning to settle into your new home? Are some of the feelings of loss, sadness, disorientation dissipating? Is it “going to be okay”?

Anita: Ask me in a year. It’s definitely going to be okay. I have a ton less house to maintain, our yard is half the size, the house is nice, that’s a plus; but it has needed a lot of work getting it to my standards. I’ve had workmen in here nonstop. I do think this was the right choice. We could have moved anywhere, but nowhere stood out. We could have put everything in storage for a year and done 365 more days of travel. We could have moved into our 34-foot sailboat, or we could have bought a bigger sailboat. But we didn’t know what we wanted. For the first time in our lives we could have done anything, but in the end, this move felt right for now. There were so many choices to make, and only six weeks to get out of the house. Maybe you end up making the right choice by listening to your collective gut.

Janet Hulstrand is a writer, editor, writing coach, and teacher. She is coauthor of Moving On: A Practical Guide to Downsizing the Family Home and author of Demystifying the French: How to Love Them, and Make Them Love You. 

An Empty Closet and Its Possibilities

A crack in the grout in the bathroom tiles. An extensive home repair. An empty closet.

Previously I had written a post about having my wall oven replaced and how emptying the kitchen cabinets before the work began enabled me to sort through and get rid of many of my pots and pans. And a while back I had written a post about completely emptying a closet or a room, pretending to move, and how that really upends the task of decluttering, based on an article by Carl Richards in the New York Times: “Three Ways to Figure Out What Stuff You Should Keep.”

Recently a leak in a bathroom, one that shares a wall with my bedroom closet, meant I had to completely empty the closet. It’s a rather large closet and I keep the usual things in it: clothes and shoes and out-of-season clothes. But I also keep some photo albums of my kids, gifts I have purchased but not yet given, needlepoint pillow fronts I made years ago but never made into pillows, yarn, lots of yarn, a china tea set from my childhood, and my Swedish horses. (I know, the horses should be on display, but for now they have taken up residence in my closet.)

 

Emptying the closet felt much more personal than emptying my kitchen cabinets. My clothes, supplies for my hobbies, treasured memories, all reside in that closet and speak to who I am. Taking them all out, seeing that empty space, gave me pause. I have had some time to contemplate what all that stuff means and think about whether I need all of it. (I don’t, of course I know that, but it’s still something to I have to think about.)

The work was postponed several times, mostly for the usual reasons, like waiting for new tile to be delivered and scheduling with the repairman. (Talking about those issues is for another post, probably for entirely other blog, one about the joys and tribulations of home maintenance.) So for a couple of weeks, I have had a completely empty closet where, for the first time since we moved in, there is nothing in it.

Each time I walk past the closet, I feel a frisson of joy. I can actually see the floor, for the first time ever, not to mention the entire empty space.

Each time I see the closet, I marvel at the amount of space I have and the enormous amount of stuff that came out of it.

Each time I walk past the emptiness, I see the possibilities, the possibilities of looking at my stuff in a new way.

What do I keep? What do I toss? What has meaning to me? Stay tuned…as I ponder the future of my stuff.

Linda Hetzer is an editor and author of books on home design, crafts, and food, and coauthor of Moving On: A Practical Guide to Downsizing the Family Home.