Reframing How You Think About Stuff Part 2- Sentimental Items

Oh man -I KNOW this one is so hard!

Sentimental items can bring decluttering progress to a halt for almost anyone. I’m not a huge follower of the KonMari method, but there is a reason she recommends you save the sentimental stuff for last. If you are just beginning to declutter, don’t even bother with the sentimental things right now. Just start making progress on the easy stuff and save the hard stuff for much, much later.

The problem comes in when EVERYTHING feels sentimental. These people can often unfairly get the “hoarder” card thrown at them, when they are definitely not hoarders.

I have minimal advice for the super sentimental folks because the facts are very simple: There is no way to tackle this without reframing your mindset. An amazing source for this re-frame is a guy named Matt Paxton. You might recognize him if you ever watched the show Hoarders. He went on to make another show called The Legacy List and wrote a book called, “Keep the Memories, Lose the Stuff”.

The premise behind this new way of thinking is this: IF EVERYTHING is SPECIAL, nothing is really special. Right? It might be a hard pill to swallow, but somewhere in your mind you know it’s true. The memories for every special person you have loved and every great moment in your life LIVE INSIDE OF YOUR HEAD AND YOUR HEART. You don’t have to keep every item they ever owned or touched to remember how special they are/were or how much you love them. You don’t have to save every ticket stub, performance program, ‘special award’ certificate to remember an experience.

Creating your personal legacy list involves gathering the HANDFUL of items that mean the most to you in the world. Yes I said handful. As in less than ten and hopefully around five. These are the “What would I grab in a fire?” items - the irreplaceable stuff. Making your list involves identifying what means the most to you and why. You get to tell the stories to your kids and your family and even write them down if you want.

I’m not an incredibly sentimental person and I have become even less sentimental over the last few years. When I die, I DO NOT want my kids digging through a houseful of boxes and storage totes and mountains of paperwork. I want them to come in with a plan, knowing exactly what was important to me and ready to get rid of all the rest without looking back.

The top item on my list? My grandmother’s quilts. I LOVED MY GRANDMOTHER SO MUCH. She was simultaneously an angel from heaven and a complete badass. If my house were on fire, everyone in my family knows those quilts are number one on the list of things to grab. The quilts bring up all my warmest and fuzziest memories of how much I loved her and she loved me.

When she died, she had a whole houseful of stuff. It’s all gone now. Would I have more or better or stronger memories of her if I had a MORE OF HER STUFF? Do you get where I’m going with this?

And here is the real kick in the pants—-someday I will die and my kids might not feel any particularly special attachment to those quilts. AND THAT IS OK!! They don’t have to keep my grandmother’s quilts. They get to make their own lives and have their own memories and their own legacy list. I do hope if they didn’t want them they would reach out to cousins, etc. and not just toss them, but guess what? I’LL BE DEAD! I probably won’t care that much.

There are people who have homes FILLED with furniture and stuff they don’t like because it belonged to a dead relative. Dead people don’t care if you get rid of their stuff. I promise. And if they were the type who would’ve made you feel guilty about getting rid of it, why are you still letting them control you from the grave? It is genuinely madness.

I have four kids of my own and a granddaughter. I do get sentimental when I think about those little baby years gone by. They each have a box of stuff with a couple outfits, special artwork, and a few school projects. Once every couple of years I can take out the one little baby outfit and smell it and almost summon up the scent of their fresh little newborn heads. I can look at something cute or funny they wrote in preschool and kindergarten and smile and then put the one little box away. Would the experience be better if I had twenty storage totes of kid clothes?

You don’t have to save every paper your kid ever writes on or every outfit they ever wear. You don’t have to save your grandma’s hutch or her China and her China cabinet unless you genuinely love it and adds joy to your life every day.

Recap:

1) If everything is special then nothing is special. More things don’t bring up more good feelings.

2) The memories live forever in your heart and mind.

***Disclaimer: The process of grieving is a separate time of sentimentality and no one is allowed to bully you out of things while you are processing your grief.