De-Cluttering, Quilts, & Living Life

This de-cluttering journey has been a lesson in life. It is teaching me new things and bringing back things that I used to know but forgot, or never really embraced.

For example, when I was back in college I lived with several roommates, as is typical. Putting my name on everything I owned was just regular life. I would buy my groceries for the week and pull out my marker that I kept in the kitchen and write my name on all my food items that went into the fridge. Then I would put those items in the fridge next to the other items like the mayo that said, “Matt” and the ketchup that said, “Alex” or the milk that said, “DIE!” (Yes, one roommate took a more direct approach to encouraging us to keep our hands off his food.*)

Our furniture was a motley collection of free items, hand-me-downs and in the kitchen, lost and orphaned parts of myriad different sets of dishes. Having a date over for dinner meant putting out the best of the dishes and silverware available, none of which matched at all.

This was okay, it’s part of growing up and the college/roommate/poor experience. But I really wished I had a nice set of matching anything. Just one.

Then at the store one day I saw a nice set of glass cups. They were ornate, but not to ornate. They were functional. They were big, but not too big. Perfect for dinners or serving drinks. And they were on sale. Heavily discounted. Even I could afford them. So I bought them.

I was so excited. I could finally serve liquid in matching vessels. What a treat!

When I got home and started to put them away, a thought crossed my mind…. Will my roommates treat these cups the way I feel they should be treated? Or is it likely they will be tossed around and used to bounce ping pongs balls into? I knew the answer.

I took my new cups I was so excited about and I packed them away for the day I would be able to really use them without worrying they will be destroyed within a month. And then I just kept moving that box with me where ever I went and I would then carefully store it in the back of a cupboard or closet where they were very safe.

I carefully carried those cups around with me from place to place and never pulled them out.

So if you follow the logic, I wanted a nice matching set of something for the kitchen. I finally found one and I liked it so much that I bought it with my meager college funds. Then I took it home and put it in the back of the cupboard in a box and left it there for over 10 years.

During that ten years I graduated college a few times, got married, had kids, moved all over the country and had several sets of cups. But I never pulled those special cups out.

It was never the right time.

Finally one day I realized it would never BE the right time. So I pulled out the cups. And my wife didn’t like them. They got relegated to the back of the cupboard to be used by me by myself or by the kids but never for dinners or a round of soda. There are a couple left in my cupboard still, sitting in the back and occasionally used just by me.

What a waste.

All that time I kept those cups, hauling them around and storing them, thinking about them and waiting for the right time to use them. Why?

What does this have to do with my de-cluttering?

Everything. As I wrote before, there is such an emotional attachment to our stuff that sometimes we make very irrational decisions that are easy for others to see but hard for us. Putting things away for a ‘later’ that will never come is not unusual. It’s not just me.

We are so funny that way as people. I know a common story was the generation (generations?) of women that got the fine China when they got married. They kept that China for special occasions, but in too many cases, it was just never used. They kept it safely stored away until they died and it never saw the light of day.

Here in our house, my wife and I cleaned out our closet as part of this decluttering process. Up on a closet shelf was a large plastic tote. In it was my wife’s wedding dress, carefully packed away, and a very nice quilt.

We were trying to decide what things to get rid of and since everything has to be considered we discussed this tote.

The dress, of course, is pretty important to my wife. I like the dress, but I am fine with my cherished memories of her in it. But de-cluttering does not mean getting rid of everything. It means getting rid of things that you have no use or room for. If you have room, and there are some things like, say a wedding dress that you do not want to part with, don’t.

We decided the wedding dress would stay. (I say we, but even though we discussed it, this was my wife’s dress and her decision.) Besides, my daughter says she would like to wear that dress when she gets married, so it will still have an actual function one day.

The quilt gave her some trouble. Her mother had made it as a gift for our wedding. She had pieced and quilted it by hand, using a pattern and colors chosen by my wife. The two of them had gone to the fabric store together to select the fabrics and my wife said she, herself, had helped with some of the stitching. It is beautiful and my wife loves it because it was hand made with her favorite colors, just for her, by her mom. That’s a pretty serious emotional connection to that quilt.

When her mother gave it to her, she told her to the keep the quilt somewhere safe and not to use it. She said, “I used the quilt that was given to me when I got married and it eventually wore out and now it is gone.”

So my wife dutifully put it away, planning, at some point, to have a room with a wall big enough to display it. Unfortunately, that room has never materialized (because who ever has a room with a wall big enough to display a king sized quilt?). Instead, we have toted it around, carefully folded up and stored away for 20+ years, and that was the first time I had looked at it since our wedding day.

Again, what’s the point?

We talked it over at length. The books really helped us out here. The authors are pretty consistent on these types of items and our conversation mirrored their thoughts. It goes something like this:

This quilt was made by my mother-in-law for my wife on a very special occasion to show her that she loved her and care for her. It is normal to want to preserve that memory and feeling in a tangible object. But does it honor the moment, my wife or my mother-in-law to do so?

Does packing around a plastic tote that sits in the back of a closet, never to be seen or used honor anything or anyone?

When we aren’t moving, we forget we even have it. Following this line of thought down the road, at some point we will die. Our kids (or someone) will come in and clean out the house. They will pull down this bin with a quilt in it and they may not need it. They may not have the emotional attachment to it. It’s very possible it ends up at a thrift store, where somebody might buy it for their pet to sleep on.

It is very possible that the only use that special quilt would ever get would be for a strangers pet to pee on it.

Does that make sense?

If we want to honor the memory and my mother-in-law, it would be best to find a way to either display the quilt as a work of art (which it is), use it and get enjoyment and satisfaction out of it while it lasts or move it on to someone who needs it and can use it.

Sitting in the closet unused and taking up valuable space and emotional energy for another 20 years was not an option for us.

My wife came up with a great idea. We put the quilt on our bed. It looks beautiful and really compliments our room since it is made in my wife’s favorite colors. At night, we carefully fold it down to our feet and set it on the bench at the foot of our bed. In the morning, we unfold it back onto the bed.

It should last for many, many years this way and we get the joy of seeing it, using it and honoring my mother-in-law everyday during those years.

The story has a happy ending, too. My wife was concerned that her mother would be disappointed when she learned that the quilt was being used on our bed, so she contemplated not telling her. But when she did tell her, her mother was very pleased. My wife said, “But I was under the impression that you didn’t want me to use it because you told me how your wedding quilt got worn out.” And her mother replied, “Oh, that’s right, I think I did say that. But life is short… use the quilt!”

I think most people would agree that this is a far better use than sitting in a closet for our entire lives.

The cups and the quilt are just two examples of the many decisions that need to be made as part of de-cluttering our house (and living our lives.)

Once you’ve gone through a whole house this way, I can see why so many people say it is life changing.

We are still at the beginning of getting control (and I really do not feel we are very cluttered people) and already we feel so much lighter and better. It is becoming addicting. Getting rid of unneeded stuff and using and honoring the things that are truly worth it is very gratifying.

Just another lesson on living life coming from de-junking our house.

* Die was actually his name in China, where he had lived for awhile. But he claimed it meant both interpretations for our food purposes.