“Throwers” relish clearing out and will empty a house quickly; “keepers” want to preserve special things as well as memories, and will linger over the process. People who balance these attributes have come to the realization that the most valuable thing in a house is the life that has been lived there. Read more about how “keepers” and “throwers” work together to downsize and declutter.
Big thanks to Kate Zirkle, founder of the American Diary Project, for this sensitive, thoughtful, and very helpful post. We hope you will find a good home for any old diaries you may find–and the American Diary Project is a great place to archive such materials!
Just a little over a year ago I wrote a post on this blog about an exciting new venture in the world of archives and diary-keepers: the American Diary Project. I’m happy to report that this wonderful new nonprofit is growing by leaps and bounds. In the past year they’ve received many donations of diaries–and taken on new volunteers to help them safeguard, catalogue, and process them all. They’ve got a new office space (in Cleveland) and new board members too, I believe. This project is really happening!
I urge everyone who has has an interest in diaries, journals and “ordinary” people’s recordings and observations of the world around us to learn more about the American Diary Project.
This month I’m also grateful to them for giving me the chance to add my two-cents to the project by writing a guest post. I hope you’ll take a look at the post (above), add your comments, and help us spread the word!
My cousin Brenda and I were happy to find a good new home for some of the memorabilia our parents had saved for many years at the Goodhue County Historical Society in Minnesota.
One of the things that we recommend in our book, Moving On: A Practical Guide to Downsizing the Family Home, in the chapter called “Getting Rid of the Rest,” in a sidebar titled “It May Not Be Junk” is to donate some of the things you find in a house in which “everything” has been kept to various kinds of organizations where archival materials (letters, journals, photographs, etc.) can be preserved for the use of future teachers, journalists, historians–and historic artifacts (objects) can be displayed and appreciated by the public.
This summer I had the opportunity to follow some of our own advice (again). My own downsizing journey has been a long one, involving the emptying of several homes and redistribution of the things in them over a period of years—first my grandparents’, then my parents’, and then my own.
Some of the artifacts I still had after many estate/garage/yard sales and many trips to thrift stores, libraries, churches, and other places to give things away–and after checking with cousins to be sure no one wanted these things for themselves–I was able to donate to several historical societies and church archives in the part of the Midwest where I–and my parents–grew up.
These were things that had been “stuck” in a storage locker in Maryland for eight years. Finally, last year, I had the contents of the locker shipped to my new home in France, and thus was able to continue the process of discovering what is in all those trunks—and what to do about them.
These are some of the things I was able to find new “homes” for this summer:
My dad’s (very beautiful!) baptismal certificate from 1923, and a studio portrait of him with his pastor and three fellow confirmands (c. 1938) I left these with Archival Committee at the church where my dad was baptized.
A wooden rocking horse made by my grandfather for my brother c. 1959 at a historical society in southeastern Minnesota. This little horse had brought pleasure for many years—first to my younger brother and sister, and then to the grandchildren of my cousin. She is now downsizing her home, and her grandchildren have outgrown the rocking horse. We are so happy it now has a good permanent home.
My grandmother’s report card, from a one-room country school in 1904 (!) (She had very good grades 🙂 ) I left this with a county historical society in Iowa. I also left a detailed, handwritten description of how a telephone switchboard of 1918 worked, written by my grandmother who apparently had been involved in training new operators. The person who accepted these things from me was delighted to read that description; and it turned into a lovely discovery for me and my sister also when she shared a photograph in the historical society’s collection of several telephone operators at work in 1917. We rather quickly realized that one of those operators was our grandmother! Thus we have another wonderful photograph to share with our cousins, and a peek into our grandmothers’ life in 1917.
A photograph, newspaper clipping, and memorial service bulletin about my dad’s cousin, a pilot whose plane was shot down over the Adriatic Sea during WWII. Sadly, his body was never found, but I learned in the process that his name (along with many others) is honored on a memorial in Florence, Italy. I left a picture of him and a newspaper article about his disappearance also at the historical society in the county where both my dad and his cousin grew up.
A packet of letters I had received back in 1971-72 from a friend who was serving in Vietnam. I gave them back to him directly, and told him about the Center for American War Letters, suggesting that this archive would be a great place to donate them if he is so inclined. It is up to him (of course!) if they end up there. The bonus here was seeing someone I hadn’t seen (or heard from, or about) in more than 50 years, and getting the chance to know him a little bit once again at a very different season of our lives.
More WWII memorabilia, including some war ration booklets and V-mail, and more report cards (my mother’s) which I left with The Pierce County Historical Society in Wisconsin.
I am back in France now, and ready to attack more of the documentation currently in my possession. For example, there are a number of diaries written by my mother and grandmother that I plan to eventually donate to the American Diary Project when I am sure that I won’t need them anymore for my own research (and when one of my cousins has finished reading our grandmothers’ letters 🙂 ). I also have more war correspondence, mostly by my father, who was stationed in Japan after WWII, but a few letters also from my grandfather and some of my uncles, which I will be preparing to send to the Center for American War Letters.
Plenty to keep me busy in the months ahead!
I must confess there are times in this process when I begin to feel I am drowning in the past, or being suffocated by it. And to even ask myself the question, “Is it really worth all this effort? Does any of this really matter?”
But I do believe the answer to both of those questions is “Yes.” And I have found that the best way to deal with the feeling of drowning in the past is to limit the amount of time spent at any one time on projects of this nature. To leave plenty of time to live in the present, to enjoy sunrises and sunsets, walks in the city or in the country, meals with friends, and all the other pleasures of life.
One tip for those who are new to this kind of activity: county historical societies tend to be very specific in accepting donations for their collections. That is, for the most part they can only accept things that have a direct connection to people or events in that county. So when you go to a historical society with your precious items, don’t be hurt if they only want to take a fraction of what you have. And don’t be discouraged either. If the answer is “no” at the county historical level, there are many other organizations—libraries, churches, schools, state historical societies, professional organizations, etc.—that may be happy to accept your donations.
You have to accept the premise that any of this matters. But once that premise is accepted, digging into the past in this way can also lead to some wonderful human connections in the present.
Barb Prochaska showing me the “telephone corner” at the wonderful Howard County Historical Society in Cresco, Iowa.
The storage locker that saved SO many precious memories (among other things) for me (and my family) for eight long years is empty. Hooray!
Over the course of those eight years, during which I paid an ungodly amount of money to store my belongings in the period when I was transitioning from a life in the US to a life in France, this handy little space became affectionately known among my friends and family as “the GDSL.” (SL is for storage locker; you can choose whichever variation for the meaning of “GD” you prefer. 🙂 )
Conventional wisdom says that people are fools to keep things in storage lockers for a long time. Even in the book my coauthor and I wrote, although we tend to fall on the side of the “keepers” of the world more than the “throwers,” we do caution people not to overdo it with storage. In Chapter 2 there is a sidebar titled “To Store or Not to Store” in which we discuss some of the pros and cons of renting storage space, and how to avoid some of the most common pitfalls. (Surely you have heard the stories about someone opening up a storage locker after x number of years and then dumping everything in it into the garbage.)
My story is different though. My situation is that I was in the middle of an extended period of decision-making about which side of the Atlantic Ocean I was going to live on, and it didn’t seem to make much sense to be shipping everything I owned to France on my own dime–no government, no corporation was going to foot the bill for a freelance writer/editor–not before I knew pretty much for certain that that is where I was going to be for a very long time if not the rest of my life.
I’m sure there are many other scenarios in which it might make sense to rent storage space for a time, even in some cases a fairly long time, when that is the only alternative.
For me it was the only alternative. And I knew that much of what was in that locker was not destined–or certainly shouldn’t be, anyway–for the garbage or the recycling bin. Most of my furniture–even some furniture I would have ideally liked to keep, but knew it was not practical for me to do so–had already been sold or given away. Same with clothing that I wasn’t using, and even some heirloom clothing (think wedding dress, baby clothes, grandmother’s fur coat) I would have preferred to keep, but I was able to brace myself and give them away.
Ditto dishes etc. All that stuff that–though some of it was pretty, and/or special in some way, and/or had sentimental value, and that I would have liked to have in my home–in the end everything that fell into the category of “just stuff” was already gone.
But there were a few things that were especially special to me (a piano, a dining room chair from my beloved Swedish grandmother’s dining room set, a baby quilt made for my sons by a dear friend). And I wanted to keep them. I did not think of these things as “just stuff.”
There were also many many boxes of family letters, journals, and photographs saved by my parents, and my grandparents, over the course of many years. As a writer with an acute sense of history, I knew that throwing away or recycling these things was not a good thing to do. These kinds of things belong in archives–like the Center for American War Letters or The American Diary Project, for example–not in recycling bins. State and local historical societies are also often appropriate recipients of such things, and in some cases even the Library of Congress or various museums might be interested.
Over the course of those eight years I wrote a series of posts as I attempted to move, give away, redistribute, or otherwise deal with the contents of this locker, which when I I first rented it, was VERY FULL.
My 9 x 19-foot storage locker in 2018, three years into the rental, and still chock full of stuff even after numerous trips to the thrift store.
Finally the moment of truth came. My son Sam pointed out to me that within a year (or at most two years) I would have spent the same amount on keeping all that stuff in the storage locker–where I had no access to it, being across the ocean–as I would spend shipping it over to France. “It’s time, Mom,” he said. “Let’s do it. I’ll help you.” (What a kid!!)
And so we did it. He gave up a full week of his summer vacation to help me get the remaining contents in the locker trimmed down a volume that would fit inside a lift van, which is all that I could afford to have shipped. (A lift van is an approximately 200-cubic-foot wooden crate that is shipped by boat inside one of those big storage containers for international shipping). The movers come with the crate inside a truck, load it, and then take it off to some mysterious location where it will eventually be packed into a storage container and sent on its way.
Contents stacked for loading. Believe it or not there is a piano hiding behind all that! Will Grandma’s dining room chair fit into the lift van? That is the question! Contents loaded into the lift van (the wooden crate) within this truck
That last round involved even more chucking of things I would have preferred to keep in order to fit into 200 cubic feet; but by this time my fatigue with the whole process, combined with my son’s steely determination to make this thing happen made the seemingly impossible, possible.
We did it. And about six weeks after I stood in the empty storage locker shown above, another truck (this one in France) arrived at our home there with what I had been able to keep from the locker. Including the piano. And my grandmother’s dining room chair, which my mover Ismael wasn’t sure he could fit in–but he did, at the last second–and it arrived, unbroken. Thank you, Ismael!
Can you believe that this little truck fit all those boxes? Plus a piano?Piano and Grandma’s dining room chair safely arrived. Home sweet home!
I am now in the process (a process which will take at least a couple of years) of continuing with the sorting, filing, redistributing, etc. that was so rudely interrupted by my running away to live in another country. And in that process, I am finding many precious things that I’m glad I was able to keep. Here, for example, is my son on his 31st birthday, with birthday wrapping paper made from a drawing he did when he was not quite three years old.
The note in lower left says “Finny very comfortable with abstraction. I asked him if he could tell me what this picture is about. “Yes, it’s about green, orange, brown.” Touché! 🙂
This summer I will take a trip to Minnesota, where I was born and raised, and where the people who wrote all those letters and took all those photographs, and raised me, lived most of their lives. I have set up meetings with archivists at several historical societies in Minnesota and Iowa, and with the church my dad was baptized and confirmed in. I will give things that I don’t need anymore for research, and don’t want to keep, and which would not be of any particular interest to archivists in France either to my cousins, or to local places where such items are archived. I am currently in communication with an archivist at the University of Minnesota who I contacted to see if the U would have any interest in assorted U-related memorabilia that my mother, a graduate, had saved. I had written initially saying “I can’t imagine you would want any of this, but…” I’m talking registration forms, folks. Bursar’s receipts. Things like that. And guess what: they want it! 🙂
So. More to come about all this a bit later. But for now–if you are one of those extreme keepers of the world (or your mother/grandmother/great uncle was), take heart. it’s really not all just stuff. And for the stuff that’s more than “just stuff,” storage lockers can be very helpful in saving our collective history. I think that’s worth doing.
My trunk full of diaries, eventually destined for donation to the American Diary Project
I am a lifelong diarist: and the trunk you see here is filled with my diaries, going back to 1962 (when I was nine years old) to 1994, when I was 41. They were in storage for a long time, but they are back with me now and I am thus faced with the responsibility of contemplating what to do with them.
Since I am a writer of memoirs, I will surely be referring to these diaries as I work on my next books. But what will happen to them after that?
I actually contemplated–with dread–destroying them after I had determined that I would have no more use for them. I asked myself if my children would really want the burden of figuring out what to do with them after I’m gone.
On the other hand, as a writer with the soul of an archivist, I really don’t believe in destroying material of this kind. Both as a memoirist who is not a famous person, and as a writing coach, I believe that everyone’s story is important. And I believe that the kind of daily detail that “ordinary” people record in their diaries is an important kind of historical documentation.
Furthermore, once I had opened a couple of my diaries and read bits of them, I realized that a) the writing is good! and b) parts or them could definitely be of interest to future historians, readers, and writers of various kinds. I carried my journal with me everywhere and recorded details about the passing parade of New Yorkers as I rode the subway, sat on benches in Central Park, walked home from the subway in Ft. Greene, Brooklyn, attended the largest nuclear disarmament rally in New York City history. I captured things that often no one else saw, and most likely no one else recorded; and these little vignettes of daily life in New York in the 1980s and 90s are interesting. They just are.
My grandmother’s diary, 1916My mother’s diary, 1973My diary, 1982
My mother and grandmother also kept diaries all their lives, and I have them. I drew on them heavily when I was working on my memoir, A Long Way from Iowa.
So–now it was back to the question of what to do with all these diaries. “Surely there must be somewherewhere this kind of thing can be saved, can be archived,” I said to myself. “There has to be!”
So I did a Google search and guess what? I discovered that there was no such place (at least no such national place) until 2022. But now there is, thanks to Kate Zirkle, founder and executive director of The American Diary Project, and her amazing group of volunteers, who are stepping up and providing a place for Americans to donate their diaries–and a place for this valuable kind of local/family/national history to be preserved, archived, and shared.
I asked Kate if she would be willing to be interviewed via email, and she graciously agreed. Here follows our e-interview.
Janet Hulstrand: How did you come up with the idea for the American Diary Project? And more importantly, how have you managed to make it a reality?
Kate Zirkle: One crisp fall day in October of 2022, I was updating my last will and testament when I was struck by the question of what to do with my journals after I passed. Should I leave them to someone? Should I burn them? Should I donate them? These questions lead me down a fruitless internet search—I just couldn’t find a suitable place to archive my writings in the US. Upon this discovery, I felt an instant, electric surge of “I WOULD LOVE TO DO THAT” and thus, the American Diary Project was born.
My professional background is in marketing, so thankfully I had the experience necessary to create a website and social media presence. It started out with just me, but since opening it up to volunteers we now have over 30 volunteers across the country that help search through diaries to capture metadata, transcribe diaries, write blog posts, and help spread the word about the project. It was also self-funded to start but now we’re officially a 501(c)(3) charitable nonprofit organization, meaning that donations made to us are tax deductible.
“There’s no such thing as a diary that is too mundane, too personal, or too trivial to us.” Kate Zirkle, Founder of the American Diary Project
Janet: Can you give our readers an idea of the kinds of diaries you are getting? What is the oldest one? What is the most recent? Are there any kinds of diaries you cannot accept?
Kate: In order to get our collection started, I initially took to Ebay, Facebook Marketplace, and local estate sales to procure diaries. Now that we’re established, we no longer purchase diaries—instead, diaries and journals are donated to our collection to preserve. As of March 2024, our oldest diary is from 1859 and our most recent diary is from 2022. Most items in the collection are physical diaries and journals, although we do have a handful of digital copies of diaries so that the owners may retain the physical copies. We also have two large volumes of World War II letters from 1942 to 1945, written by a soldier, Harry, to his sweetheart, Bridget, back home.
Janet: Is there any particular advice you have for people who are contemplating sending their diaries to you?
Kate: I usually tell folks that they have two options for their personal diaries:
Donate what you currently have now to ensure those are added to the collection no matter what.
Wait to donate all journals at once.
Either way, folks will want to add a section to their will that outlines their wishes for all journals to be sent to the American Diary Project and then list out this website link: Americandiaryproject.com/donate-diary. This should ensure that the executor of their will can find the most up-to-date donation information even if we move the collection intake location, which we will in the near future. If folks need help creating a will, this is a good resource: Doyourownwill.com
I’d also like to reiterate that the American Diary Project is the diary archive for everyday folks. There’s no such thing as a diary that is too mundane, too personal, or too trivial to us.
“Every story, every experience, every life is worth preserving. Please consider donating your diaries rather than destroying them.” Kate Zirkle
Janet: Can you explain what happens when a diary arrives at your office? What are the steps that take it through to being digitized and/or archived?
Kate: First and foremost, we do a happy dance—we’re so excited to receive new contributions to the collection! We then unpack and inspect each diary, applying light cleaning if necessary. Then we document the diary in our online database before placing it into archival storage for preservation. We note important characteristics like the year it was written, where it was written, what it looks like, and any additional information we might have about the author.
As time permits, and even by request of our followers, we also digitize our diaries. We carefully photograph each page of the diary and upload that onto our website. A wonderful volunteer takes it from there, reading through the diary to capture metadata topics and transcribe the diary. We now have many diaries available for the public to read on our website.
Janet: Are the archives open to the public? Is there (or will there be) a catalogue?
Kate: Our collection is currently only open to the public digitally on our website. Our long-term goal is to open a physical library for in-person viewing and research.
Janet: What are some of the most interesting entries you’ve received? The most touching? How about the funniest bits you’ve discovered?
Kate: We share interesting bits from diaries on our social media accounts: Instagram, Facebook, and LinkedIn. Three of my favorite diaries are highlighted on our blog:
Daughter shares what it was like finding her late mother’s diary Claire reached out to the American Diary Project to donate her late mother’s diary to the collection. Her mother’s 1980s diary is unique, entertaining, and, at times, heartbreaking. In essence, it is exquisitely human and we are honored to help preserve it. We are immensely grateful to Claire for sharing not only her mother’s diary but her own journey with loss and grief as well.
Addicted to mischief: The poetic writing of Adelaide Irvine Richter This was the very first piece to enter the collection. It ended up being closer to an amateur memoir than a diary but it has such a special story that goes along with it. After we posted a blog about the piece, Adelaide’s nephew, Douglas (Doug) Irvine Richter, got in touch with us to share more information about his amazing aunt Addie. He also said, “God bless you and thank you for sharing the info. Until now I did not know where she was buried. She passed suddenly and I had no one to contact to find out. I always contacted her caregivers through Addie’s email account that went dead when she passed.” It gives me goosebumps to know that we helped Addie’s family find her!
How reading a stranger’s diary taught me more than a self-help seminar ever could This journal is extra special since it came to the American Diary Project from a man who is still among the living, as of December 2022. We keep his identity concealed as much as possible in order to protect his privacy. His diary is filled with ample motivational and self-help material and is a joy to read. The author is still in touch with us to this day.
Janet: What kind of donations do you accept? Hard copy? Digital only? Is it possible to submit hard copy and then be able to access a digital version later?
Kate: For donations, we accept diaries in nearly any medium, including those kept in bound journals, notebooks, and even on loose sheets of paper. If you can get it to us, we’re happy to add it to the collection. While we prefer to receive original documents, we also accept copies or scans of diaries, especially if the donor or the diarist would rather hang on to the original. We also accept digital versions of diaries. If a donor or family member of a diarist in our collection requested that we send a physical diary back to them, we absolutely would after verifying their identity and connection.
Janet: I’m intrigued (and amused) by the description of your volunteers as “an amazingly dedicated and delightfully introverted” group of people. Why introverted?
Kate: I think there’s something special about folks who choose to spend their free time reading quietly and volunteering for the American Diary Project. It is often a solitary pursuit and naturally something that appeals to introverts. Our volunteers are some of the kindest, and at times quietest, people I’ve ever met. There are no egos, no drama—just a like-minded group of people doing their part to preserve American history. Introverts are amazing!
Janet: How does copyright work with donated materials?
Kate: Those who donate diaries to our collection agree to gift the diary/diaries to the American Diary Project to preserve in perpetuity and agree to transfer the copyright of the gifted diary/diaries to the American Diary Project. This is documented via our donation form.
Janet: How can people help you with this project? You’re in Cleveland; I’m wondering both what people living in the Cleveland area can do to help, and also if there are ways to help from a distance.
Kate: There are many ways for folks all across the world to get involved by volunteering for the American Diary Project:
Write blog posts
Read diaries to document metadata topics
Transcribe diaries
Contribute diaries to the collection
Spread the word about the project
Donate archival and business supplies via our Amazon Wish List
Since we’re a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, we also accept monetary donations to help with our operational expenses. We also have a volunteer-based board of directors and will entertain adding new directors if anyone is interested.
Janet: Kate, thank you so much for taking the time to answer these questions–and an even bigger thanks to you, and your team of volunteers, for taking on this very important work. I can’t tell you what a relief it was to me to learn that you are out there, solving this problem for me, and for so many others who care about preserving American history, as seen through the eyes of “ordinary” Americans. I hope that people who discover diaries as they are going through the contents of a home will consider sending their diaries to you!
As Memorial Day comes around once more, it’s time to honor the sacrifices made by veterans of war (and their families). The picnics are fun, and the beginning of summer is joyful. But let’s not forget the original meaning of the holiday. Who do you know who should be remembered for their selfless service? How can you honor their memory?
This is my Dad’s cousin Howard, who was almost like a brother to him. He was a pilot whose plane went down over the Adriatic Sea during World War II. His body was never found.
One of the tag lines for our book, and for this blog is: “Keep the memories, get rid of the stuff.” And as Memorial Day draws near, it seems to me a good time to think about keeping memories of war.
Memorial Day is often thought of as a day of picnics and the beginning of the summer season. But at its heart, Memorial Day is really about remembering those who died at war. That is why I’ve put a picture of a member of our family who lost his life in World War II above.
But I think it’s a good time to also remember those who came back from war, and what they…
A few months ago, the New York Times published an articled titled “How to Discover the Life-Affirming Comforts of ‘Death Cleaning’” by Rhonda Kaysen. The article uses the book The Gentle Art of Swedish Death Cleaning by Margareta Magnusson as a jumping off point to talk about downsizing and decluttering while we are still able to do it for ourselves. The book by Magnusson is described as “a charming, practical, and unsentimental approach to putting a home in order while reflecting on the tiny joys that make up a long life.”
When the article was published the Times asked for comments and then included many of the hundreds of responses in the Opinion pages a couple of months later. Some of these responses were “charming, practical, and unsentimental” while others were emotional and touching and some even heartbreaking.
While the responses from readers ran the gamut, many of the people who commented fell into the categories of downsizers we have discussed in our blog: the “keepers” who want to preserve special things as well as memories, and will linger over the process and the “throwers” who relish clearing out and will empty a house quickly.
But the most moving responses were from people who had had a profound reaction to sorting through all the stuff that belonged to loved ones and shared their stories in the comment section.
One commenter found the word “clutter” to be distasteful. “The word captures none of the wistful sadness of the triage required to downsize one’s accumulated past life, even while looking forward to the next phase.”
One person said that she had somehow become the keeper of the flame for the whole family. “Cleaning out the house has made me decide to give up that role and eliminate what I do not want or need.”
Another man was sorting through his parents’ home after his mother’s death and found, among much stuff, five copies of Mickey Rooney’s autobiography. After cleaning up somewhat and selling the house, he said, “I took the only things that truly mattered. My memories, my dad, his dogs and one copy of Mickey Rooney’s autobiography.”
After a man and his wife cleaned out his in-laws’ home of 50 years, he said it was the hardest task either of them had ever done, “taking a physical, emotional and to some extent even spiritual toll.” From that experience, he felt the best thing we can do “is to determine what’s truly important and get rid of the rest.”
One man writes that he never had a good relationship with his mother and, as one of her caregivers, was able to sort through some of her private papers while she was dying. He found teachers’ reports and artwork of his, clearly things that she appreciated and valued. He says, “By the time she died of dementia in her home, I had received the grace to grieve her loss in a way I thought unimaginable. Disposing of her physical belongings gave me the gift of realizing a love she had for me I never knew existed.”
One person’s response reminded me of what a friend told me as I was writing our book Moving On. She said that after her father-in-law passed away, her mother-in-law cleaned out her house of all the accumulated stuff, saying she did it as a gift to her children. The commenter said, “My goal is for my kids, instead of saying ‘what are going to do with all this stuff?’ will say ‘I wonder what happened to…’”
That’s worthy of adding to my list of goals for emptying my home of clutter: For my children to say, “I wonder what happened to…”
It’s that time of year again when people will soon be throwing open their windows and declaring that it’s time for spring cleaning. Some people may actually take the next step and DO it!
For those who are also either in the process of downsizing, or doing some serious thinking about it–mainly, nowadays, aging Baby Boomers–spring cleaning may mean more than just cleaning. It may mean getting rid of at least some of those things that you’ve been meaning to get rid of for a long time, but just haven’t done it.
Of course, some of the things filling closets and attics and garages are actually things that should NOT just be thrown into the garbage for a number of reasons.
There are a few categories of items you should think twice about before tossing them into the garbage. Clothing (and other textiles) is one. Letters, photographs, and other things on paper is another.
These past posts provide tips about ecologically sound and historically respectful things you can do with some of those things.
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.”
It’s true: we’ve got (almost) a whole new year ahead of us. Many of us were hoping that it would feel instantly different and better than the last year, but sometimes things don’t happen as quickly as we would like them to.
The result is that many of us are housebound again, whether because of the weather, or avoiding the virus, or having to isolate and get better after exposure to the virus.
So, that’s disappointing. But what can we do to turn things around and make a housebound January/February more productive? Here are five ideas for you to take or leave, as you please.
What about dealing with those boxes of old photographs you were able to ignore in the pleasant days of summer and fall? You know the ones I mean. (The ones in those boxes, or that closet, that you’ve been trying to ignore.) Why not take some time to go through the pictures, put them in books, or frame them, and/or label the ones that your children may wish one day that you had labeled. (You can get some advice about how to do that without ruining the photographs in our book.)
If, while you are following idea #1 you have some fun, touching, or tender memories about the people and/or places in the pictures, consider taking the time to write down (or record) the memories. Often stories about people are even more interesting than pictures of them. Certainly they are more interesting than just their names.
One of the most difficult things about downsizing a home is the overwhelming nature of it. It’s good to break it down into small, manageable pieces. My coauthor wrote a great post about attacking an excess of items in her kitchen a few years ago, and it occurs to me that this would be a great housebound-in-winter task. (Not the whole house. Just the kitchen, for now…)
Do you have a tradition of telling your kids their birth day stories? I was inspired by one of my cousins who has an annual tradition of recounting these stories to her kids, to at least write those stories up for my sons. This could be an enjoyable task to take on when you get tired of sorting things. 😦
Not as much fun as thinking about the day(s) when your children came into the world, it’s important to prepare things for the day you will one day go out of it. Here’s another post by my coauthor about writing a legacy letter. This can be a wonderful thing to leave behind for your children: even better than china and silver, and even old photographs. 🙂
Whatever you decide to do with the sometimes dreary days at this time of year, do take good care of yourself and hold on for spring. It will be coming! We can count on that…and when it comes we probably won’t be in the mood for labeling photographs or organizing kitchen drawers.
So why not take advantage of the opportunity to do so now?
This is my Dad’s cousin Howard, who was almost like a brother to him. He was a pilot whose plane went down over the Adriatic Sea during World War II. His body was never found. 
downsizing the home 