I grew up in a home where it was the norm to see boxes piled up against a wall; stacks of paper on every horizontal surface; collections of mismatched items in nooks and crannies.
‘Clutter’ makes my whole body feel knotted just under the surface. For various reasons, ‘stuff’ took over my childhood home to the point where all the useable space was exhausted as storage.
Then I turned 18 and moved off to college. My belongings were limited to tacky posters and Christmas lights strung across my dorm room.
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| These were all the dishes I owned. I bought this ‘matching set’ to impress my boyfriend when he came to visit me at college. He obviously married me for my taste in kitchenwares and my collection of AllRecipes conquests. |
Then I graduated college and my possessions were upgraded to things like milk crate bookshelves, a bed with no frame, handmedown couch and that 4-seat pine dining set every 21 year old had because it was the cheapest form of saying ‘Hey, I’m a grown up’. My husband (then boyfriend) and I had little money, little possessions, but we did lots of living.
Fast forward ten years and we are in a house with more than enough space but also more than enough stuff. The creeping storage of boxes in closets all over the basement is giving me that same knotted feeling that comes with a team of trash talkers. Read On…..
