Emotional turmoil of decluttering a lifetime of memories
Old love letters. Children’s toys. Author Jane Shilling couldn’t bear to throw anything away – until now. Here she lays bare the . . .
This time of year is perfect to do some serious decluttering. Take my advice. i recently had a go as part of a long- overdue redecoration of my house. it’s 21 years since my son Alexander and i moved to our two-up, two- down cottage in south-East London, and i seem to have kept every object we ever acquired in the course of those two decades.
Gritting my teeth, i took load after load of stuff to the charity shop and the tip. i even managed to throw away a folder of my son’s artwork from primary school — sploshy posterpaint prints of his little hands and feet that i thought i’d never be able to part with.
When it was done i felt exhilarated; as though i was about to begin a new life in my freshly-painted house.
But as i began putting our remaining belongings back into the calm, pearl-grey rooms, something felt wrong. i thought i’d been brutal about getting rid of our unwanted possessions, but i realised that i was still drowning in stuff we never used.
While i loved all the clutter when i bought it, now i began to feel that the story it had told was over, and i wanted to begin a new chapter.
i find it overwhelmingly hard to throw out anything that might one day come in useful, or which has a happy memory attached to it. i had done as much as i could on my own. Now i needed help.
This is where the The Minimalists ( theminimalists.com) come in. Joshua Fields Millburn and Ryan Nicodemus are a couple of American chaps who are missionaries for decluttering.
According to them, decluttering isn’t just about being able to open a cupboard without releasing an avalanche of old hockey sticks and perished wellies. it is a spiritual quest which can make you not just tidier, but happier, healthier, richer and nicer.
And the good news is that the Minimalists’ approach seemed more like a game than a chore. On day one, you get rid of one item. On day two, you throw out two things. And so on. if you keep going for two weeks, you’ll have cleared your house of 105 unwanted bits of stuff.
DAY 1 i Could hardly wait to get started, and i knew exactly what i was going to throw out first: the tin bath that’s been lurking in a corner of the garden for the past 20-odd years.
Back in 1993, when i first saw our house, i burst into tears. it was perfect in every way, but for one crucial detail: there was no bath, and Alexander was too small to use the shower.
‘stop crying, buy the house and get a tin bath,’ said a sensible friend. so i did. Once he was big enough to use the shower, the tin bath became a paddling pool. Then it was retired to the shrubbery, where it’s been sitting ever since, full of rainwater and dead leaves. i can’t think why i haven’t got rid of it before.
DAY 2 Next on the list are two fearsome eyesores: gifts from generous people i met on a trip to china. There is a school of thought that says you should treasure any present, however hideous, out of respect for the giver. But there is no place in my pale-grey house for two lacquer boxes containing a quartet of pottery dwarfs and a flask embellished with a panda, however kindly meant.
DAY 3 i’M feeling my first twinge of resistance. i am hopeless at throwing out books. Every time i try, i feel certain it will turn out to be an essential source for some future piece of writing.
As a result, every cupboard in the house is double-banked with books. There must be thousands. And because my job involves writing about books, they keep on coming. i can feel the anxiety rising as i pack them into boxes to take to the Oxfam bookshop, but i’m going to be strict with myself and do it.
DAY 4 IT’s not getting any easier. i seem to own almost as many pairs of shoes as books, including several pairs of museum- quality Manolo Blahniks too beautiful to wear, and — at the other end of the spectrum — quite a few pairs that i love too much to get rid of, even though they are worn out.
Bracing myself, i round up a pair of seventies crocodile Ferragamo high heels, my beloved but worn-to-death faux snakeskin boots, some witchy hermes ankle boots and a pair of kitten heels which were a misguided sales bargain.
it’s a wrench to part with the snakeskin boots — so many good things happened when i was wearing them. And the Ferragamo heels are surely just coming back into fashion. But
the Minimalists are firm about not hanging onto things out of sentiment, so off they must go.
DAY 5 You wouldn’t think anyone could be sentimental about kitchen equipment. But I am still using my grandmother’s old cake tins, which must be 50 years old, and I’m definitely not getting rid of them.
It’s not hard to ditch a frying-pan whose non-stick coating is peeling, a casserole with a broken lid and a gadget for de-stoning cherries.
But the mouli-legumes I used to puree Alexander’s baby food and a kitchen knife that’s been sharpened until the blade is worn to a sliver are old friends. Getting rid of them feels like a betrayal, but I do it.
DAY 6 I spent a lot of time with my grandparents when I was young, and I’ve obviously inherited their spirit of make do and mend.
I’ve been hanging onto a collection of defunct electrical equipment — two broken lamps, a dead hairdryer, a telly that might work if I could figure out how to retune it, and a dodgy set of Christmas lights — in the forlorn hope I’ll find a handyman who knows how to mend them. But it’s not going to happen.
DAY 7 the same goes for this shaming collection of underwear, some of which I have confiscated from my partner who I’m trying to convert to the cause of decluttering. At least his underpants are meant to be grey. Mine turned that colour after an unfortunate encounter with a black sock in the washing machine, and as I’d only just bought them, I was too mean to throw them out. But they depress me every time I see them, so it will be a relief when they’re gone.
DAY 8 Before the redecoration, every room in the house was hung with pictures. I thought I’d want to rehang them all, but now I feel that I’d rather have just one or two that I really love.
I’m keeping some woodcuts and a drawing of a horse. the rest can go to the charity shop for someone else to enjoy.
DAY 9 With a few exceptions, my first week of decluttering wasn’t too bad. things are getting tougher now, though.
‘Memories aren’t in physical things, they are in us,’ the Minimalists say. But they’ve obviously never tried throwing out their child’s soft toys. every time I look at this gang of Alexander’s old teddies, the memories flood back and I can’t meet their reproachful, beady eyes.
I’m really not sure I can go through with it — but I just have to steel myself and throw them away.
DAY 10 I’M Pretty sure Alexander would be delighted for me to dispose of his old baby clothes. It’s got to go! Jane Shilling tackles her clutter problem smocked rompers, pyjamas printed with 18th- century shepherdesses, a pale blue velvet jacket lined with white satin. Why on earth did I think it was a good idea to dress him up as Little Lord fauntle-roy? I sometimes imagine a future grandchild wearing the blue velvet jacket, but that’s exactly the sort of bonkers fantasy that decluttering is intended to cure.
DAY 11 there is a downside to staying the same dress size all your grown-up life, and it is that you have an excuse to hoard every frock you’ve ever owned. I bought this cream silk dress and jacket and the green Chinese brocade cocktail dress in charity shops when I was at university, and had huge fun wearing them. the black crepe dress belonged to my mother, who must have had a figure like sophia Loren’s when she was young. I can hardly do up the hooks at the waist, but the bust is huge. I could never wear it, but I’ve kept it because it is so beautifully made.
All these frocks have a story to tell and it makes me sad to think of getting rid of them. Another wobbly moment, but to the charity shop they go.
DAY 12 for years I loved poking about in junk shops for pretty pieces of china. But I’m hopelessly clumsy, so I’ve had to learn not to mind too much when things get smashed, and, to my surprise, I don’t really mind parting with my collection.
DAY 13 A Long love affair ended badly on new Year’s eve a few years ago, and I took these love letters down to the thames at midnight, meaning to throw them in. But the tide was out, which rather spoiled my grand gesture, and I’ve still got them. re-reading them now, they bring back lots of good memories. But it’s time to let them go.
DAY 14 It’s definitely time to let these teenage diaries go, too. re- reading them, with their unkindness and narcissism, brought back nothing but scalding shame. Can I really have been such a horrible brat? Into the bin with them! so how do I feel now? At the end of my decluttering programme, the house is tidier, the garden looks much better without the tin bath and I’ve learned a surprising amount about my relationship with my things.
the Minimalists suggest that editing your life shouldn’t be an occasional exercise in springcleaning but a kind of constant spiritual exercise.
It is true that almost all of us in the wealthy West have absurd amounts of pointless stuff, and I’m happy to have got rid of some of mine. But I’ve also found it interesting to discover how powerful the connection is between my belongings and my sense of identity.
the Minimalists argue that happiness is to be found in exper ience, not in possessions. But objects, too, can inspire and uplift us. If we were all minimalists, there would be no museums, no art galleries, no great houses and — with no one to buy their work — no artists.
My experience with minimalism has left me half- converted to the cause. A demi-minimalist, if you like. from now on, I’m going to be much more careful about buying anything new. the great designer William Morris’s maxim of owning only objects that are either useful or beautiful seems a good working rule.
But I think there’s room in my life for memories, too. And if they happen to take the shape of a battered old teddy, or a dress I no longer wear, I can live with that.