Week 6 – Sentimental Items
I was not looking forward to this week, and – master procrastinator that I am – I’m still not. After making so little progress last week with the “komono” (miscellaneous) category, I decided that my best course of action would be to continue down that path with my list of miscellaneous sub-categories and tackle them one by one. I recognize that that decision will take me far more than the original eight weeks I had planned, but I am also hoping to achieve the goal I set for myself in Week 1, no matter how long that takes.
Image credit: [1]
The Hardest Category
For those of you following along at home, Week 6 starts out with putting all sentimental items in one spot, just like every category before. Interestingly, there seem to be very few purely sentimental items in my house that don’t fall into one of the previous categories (clothing, books, papers, or miscellaneous). My parents’ house is a completely different story, as it is part time capsule and part shrine to my childhood, chock full of purely sentimental items. I will need to go through my things there some day, but my parents haven’t started shoving boxes of my stuff out the door… yet.
In fact, I have so few purely sentimental items in this house, that my pile of them was essentially assembled by the time I cleared out my bookcases at the beginning of Week 3. They could probably all be their own sub-category in Miscellaneous, as most of them are small figurines of various types I’ve gathered over the years. Some were hand-made for me by people I know, some are religious or astrological figurines that hold spiritual significance, and some mark places I’ve traveled or lived, most notably Japan. They have all been sitting together on a table upstairs, near my stuffed animals (which are not going anywhere), waiting for this week… but they will have to continue to wait, as I have barely made a dent in my Miscellaneous list.
My original plan with this challenge was to do as much as I could in eight weeks and call it good enough for now, knowing that, though not complete, there would be some improvement. Part of me considered skipping over the rest of my Miscellaneous list so I could stick with (and blog about) my original plan. I also figured that purging some sentimental items now would make any return to Miscellaneous at a later time all the easier: if I can get rid of something I’ve treasured for years, that would make parting with a paper bag full of paper bags a no-brainer. Ultimately, though, I decided to continue with my list of Miscellaneous Items so I can strengthen my willpower for what’s to come… because, in all honesty, dealing with Christmas was bad enough.
A Note on Christmas
I have seasonal depression, and Christmas is literally a bright time in the darkness of winter. My Christmas decorations stay up as long as I can manage without putting my marriage in jeopardy. Electric candles typically remain in the windows until around Daylight Savings Time or the first day of Spring. Our Christmas tree (cut, not artificial) usually stays up until our wedding anniversary at the beginning of February, at which point I take it down as a “gift” to Christian. (I have a smaller, artificial one upstairs that stays out until whenever I get organized enough to put the decorations in storage.)
I can’t imagine getting rid of some of these, nor do I intend to.
This year, because we had been closed in for so long, and hadn’t been able to have a Christmas party, and hadn’t been able to see our families in person at Christmas, he let me keep the real tree up longer to help lift my mood. While I wouldn’t call it a “sentimental” item, it was incredibly hard to get rid of. Finally, though, it was truly becoming a fire hazard, and on a warm sunny day (when it hurt less to do so), we took the tree out. I thanked it for the joy it brought to our house, and we will be taking it to our friends’ farm so it can bring further joy to their goats.
I also parted with a once-beautiful boxwood wreath my aunt made for me several years ago. Since it was made of fresh greens, it only looked good and served its purpose for one year, but I hadn’t been able to get rid of it after it faded. I certainly couldn’t put something made with love in the garbage – doing so makes me feel like I am equating it with trash, saying it has no value… and therefore, taking that line of thought to the extreme end of logical connections, saying that my aunt has no value. Yes, I worry that people will think I don’t love them if I get rid of things they have given me.
I have no idea how this concept ever took root in my brain, but I experience immense guilt when parting with something that was a gift. That is one of the main reasons I have so much stuff piled up in this house – I have so many things that aren’t items I want, but they feel imbued with the love of the giver, and I feel like if I discard the item, I’m discarding (or at least disregarding) that love. And many of these things – like the wreath, which can’t even be used or displayed anymore – just find their way to a safe place upstairs where they take up room.
I can’t say the wreath doesn’t spark joy because it reminds me of my aunt, whom I love. However, I can say that it is past its time (like our Christmas tree), and it is not something I envisioned bringing with me when I pictured my future state back in Week One. So, since I didn’t want to throw the wreath in the garbage, but I didn’t plan to keep it, I burned it outside on the Spring Equinox, which felt poetic, reinforcing the idea that some things have a time, and when that time passes, it’s OK to let go.
Attachment vs. Love
I know I am not the only person who feels this way about things. I know I got it from my mother and her family. Also, dear friend Stacey, who is doing this challenge along with me (and sending me encouraging texts almost daily!), has expressed similar feelings about getting rid of gifts and old greeting cards.
While I was sorting through stacks of bags and tissue paper, I listened to an old episode of RadioLab called “Things,” in which they explored our relationship with stuff. I had heard it several times before, but it was interesting to revisit while wrestling with this challenge. In one segment, host Robert Krulwich and his wife Tamar were given the opportunity to handle items of historical significance, such as a chair that belonged to the last empress of China and a flag that accompanied Neil Armstrong to the moon. Robert claimed he could feel the electric sensation of importance in these items; his wife could not.[2]
In the episode, they go on to discuss the phenomenon in which an item owned by a famous person is perceived to be somehow imbued with the energy of that person, or objects that are from a famous time or place are imbued with that energy, increasing their perceived value. Even objects we own begin to increase in our own perceived value the instant we take possession of them. Experiments have been done with young children who place greater value on “their” toy, not an identical copy, and who continue to think of that toy as “theirs,” even after it is given to another child, simply because it was theirs first.
This connection with things seems to manifest more strongly in societies that value more independence and individualism. Japan, the home of Marie Kondo, has been specifically mentioned as a culture in which this behavior is less pronounced. Studies in western society have shown that we use unique possessions to express our identity as early as adolescence, and that our things become “external receptacles for our memories, relationships and travels.”[3] Marie insists that getting rid of a sentimental item won’t get rid of the memory, but I still get that spark of joy and flood of memory that comes with touching a sentimental item – even my Japanese 7-11 receipts!
Some of my Christmas items were far harder to sort than I imagined, but I have made it through wrapping paper, ribbons, tissue paper, bags, boxes, and decorations. I literally have bags full of bags in the giveaway pile and boxes of gorgeous, lovingly-gifted (but unused) glass ornaments that I know my aunt can sell in her Christmas shop. It makes it easier to know that these things will bring joy to other homes, and it’s nice to know that I successfully decoupled love for one item and love for the person who gave it to me. I know that will be an incredibly valuable skill in the weeks to come.
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Have you parted with a sentimental item? How did you do it, and how did you feel during and afterwards? I’d love to hear about it below.
Thanks for reading!
[1] https://konmari.com/konmari-marie-kondo-tidy-challenge-week-six/
[2] https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/radiolab/episodes/things
[3] https://thepsychologist.bps.org.uk/volume-26/edition-8/psychology-stuff-and-things
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