I tackled the other overstuffed living room chair this morning. This one was covered in paper clutter. Stuff I meant to file away, old pictures, old cards. I’m happy to report that I dealt with all the clutter on today’s pile, but it wasn’t easy. Lots of anxiety. Lots of memories associated with those dead tree scraps. Lots of regrets.
I don’t like the way I feel at this moment like my lungs are bound up in a ball. I should feel happy. I accomplished a goal. I finished what I started. But there were papers associated with funerals I’ve attended. Pictures of people who are no longer with us. Lots of would’ve/could’ve/should’ve in that pile. I found the paperwork for the condo we almost bought years ago, a home we couldn’t afford when my husband lost his job while we were going through the closing. Old check stubs. Christmas Cards signed by relatives who are now dead. As I was going through the other rooms of the house, purging unwanted items, every time I came across a piece of paper I wasn’t ready to deal with, I’d put it in a pile. Eventually, all the piles merged together and were placed on this chair. If I’d dealt with this stuff as it came to me, as it came into my life, I could have avoided this day. But I didn’t, so here I am, an anxiety-ridden mess.
I don’t know why I’m allowing theses negative feeling to take root in me. I took control of my life. If I keep going, my living room will be orderly in a matter of days. I deserve to have a home I can enjoy, a home where I don’t have to make a mad-cleaning-dash every time someone wants to stop by for a visit. I’ve purged our home of so much clutter, it would only take a few days to finish off what’s left.
But…that’s the problem.
The baskets, etc in the living room are filled with the stuff I didn’t want to deal with when I went through the rest of the house the first time around. It was easier to put anything I wasn’t ready to deal with aside in order to work on the bigger picture. The procrastinator in me thought this was an excellent strategy. It’s much easier to live in imaginary tomorrow-land, but eventually you run short on tomorrows. That’s where I feel like I’m at. I’m 496 months old today. I’d like to have something to show for my time here on the planet, not a living room filled with baskets of random objects.
JULI HOFFMAN 
Hugs! You’re making progress, and that’s what matters.
You know what? You haven’t dealt with/looked at those papers in all this time. Just throw the whole thing away OR go ahead, stick it in a box, stick it in a closet and forget it. There are things we need to organize (bills, clothes, stuff we sue every day) and then stuff we just organize because someone told us we should – like keepsakes. Chances are we’d all be better off if we tossed most of our keepsakes, and after the initial guilt wore off its doubtful we’d ever notice that we got rid of them, but alternately unless it’s something you need to find (like some kind of receipt or someone wants a copy of a photo) there’s nothing that says it HAS to be gone through. I know, I know, you’re not looking for advice, but I have this exact same paper issue and those are the two methods I tend to use :p I’ll rifle through, pull out photos (I keep those all together, not necessarily organized but together) and then throw the rest in a box. I just finally purged 70% of the stuff from my 20s and before. There’s still stuff that needs to go – but it got stuffed in a box in the closet for the next time I “organize”.
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If you don’t want to deal with the papers, put them in a box and label it. You can either pick one thing at a time to deal with later or just keep it all in a box put away where you don’t have to look at it. It’s okay to have those feelings, but don’t dwell on them too long after you’re done if you can help it. Keep up the good work!
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My problem is, these are the boxes of papers I didn’t want to deal with earlier in my life, and now I have NO space for them! LOL I think later is finally NOW. 🙂
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