Clutter and Collections
My dear friends - THE COLLECTORS
This post closely overlaps with another topic on the blogs-coming-soon: RELATIONSHIPS vs. CLUTTER. Today I’m throwing my own true love under the bus a wee teeny bit. (I asked him first.)
My husband is a very, very tidy person. In the lottery of husbands, I am the big winner when it comes to tidiness. He doesn’t leave things lying around. At all. His clothes go in the hamper. He washes dishes like it’s his job. He tries to tidy up the toys whilst kids are still playing. I know, I know. Sexy, right? I am actually the SLOB in the relationship. I leave stuff around until it bothers me and then tornado through the space.
Anyway -trust me, he’s not perfect. Private message me if you want to know all the ways in which he drives me insane, but he IS very clean.
He is a collector which is something I am not. Sometimes I come across a random, useless item that I just love and it brings me joy so I keep it. I don’t have attachments to many material objects and to someone else my little objects are probably clutter, but these items don’t fit into any one certain category to be defined as a “collection”. Also -I don’t keep A LOT of them.
My husband loves books (another future topic) and compact discs. Yes - compact discs. In the digital age. He loves music. I mean - everyone loves music, but he loves it abnormally. And he feels bad that artists don’t make money on their music anymore. So he buys compact discs. And keeps them. In my house. Now he works hard and he lives here, too, so what am I really going to say about it? Right?
The THING about COLLECTIONS:
1) In the gospel of stuff vs. clutter, YOU CAN’T COLLECT ALL THE THINGS. Your home is a finite space. It is to be shared with the actual real live people you love-the breathing humans who are more important than objects. You have to limit the number of categories you “collect”.
2) Here is the part where my dearest reenters the chat- collections are meant to be seen, displayed, enjoyed, and cherished. Collections don’t live in storage. Repeat: COLLECTIONS DON’T LIVE IN STORAGE. This is my gospel of clutter and henceforth this shall be considered a fact. When an art gallery or museum DISPLAYS a new COLLECTION, people come through to look at it, talk about it, and share the experience of the collection with others. The minute you put your stuff in storage; it’s not a collection anymore. It’s now clutter. No one is appreciating it, including you.
We had to waterproof our basement this summer. My husband has an office space in the basement. His collection of compact discs had specific storage racks where it was displayed. He packed them in a couple storage totes while the work was being done.
Now it is March. The discs are still in the totes. I’m harassing him to unpack them. He doesn’t want to. They are no longer a collection. Now they are clutter. No one is using or appreciating them.
UNPACK THE COMPACT DISCS, BRIAN.
