I've always been kind of ok with being a slobby pack rat. I generally know where things are, despite no one else being able to find anything, and with enough notice of visitors, I can tidy up enough ahead of time to make it seem like I'm not really a pack rat slob. Lately, though, it's gotten really out of hand. I've made a couple attempts at getting it more under control, but without long lasting success.
The problem? Just too much stuff. Both household in general, and farm related. The REAL, really real problem? Fear coupled with control issues. I need to let things go, permanently, but - what if I find that I need those things after I've let them go? Doesn't matter that I haven't used whatever the thing is in so long that it's beginning to develop it's own dust outline - that's not the point. Murphy's Law says I'll need it after it's gone, so why waste the money and have to find/buy it again later, when I can just keep it now? And that's the crippling circle. It stops here.
I recently hit rock freaking bottom in a glorious explosion of complete overload, physical and emotional. While my own home was still in disarray, I took on huge project A, then, while I was still in the midst of project A, followed it up with another similar huge project B, injured my neck so that I literally was barely able to function on a daily basis, which sent my emotional balance plummeting to...yes, rock freaking bottom. I was a mess. My home was a mess. My projects were a mess. My farm was a mess. You get the picture - complete and total disaster.
I'm amazingly fortunate and grateful for my husband, who supported my decisions on tackling these projects, even though he probably saw this catastrophe coming miles away and knew he'd need to step in and help pick up the pieces. Maybe neither of us realized just how many pieces there would be, since the neck injury was a complete and very very unpleasant surprise, and just served to compound all the other problems into one epic disaster, but there it was.
Chiropractic visits got the neck injury on the road to recovery, and a healthy dose of self assessment got me kick started into doing some really deep cleaning and purging throughout our home, and then beginning to spread to the farm. If I do not use it REGULARLY, and it does not bring me JOY, it's gone. Kitchen appliances, clothing, trinkets, livestock, whatever. I apply this measure to everything, indiscriminately.
Progress has been slow out of necessity; the kids school schedule is a minor interruption, as is my weekly job away from home, but the main time constraint is the deep cleaning factor. The technique that works best for me is to focus on one area, say, a closet. I pull everything out of said closet, lay it all out on the bed, and begin sorting, using my measure. For clothing, do I like it enough to even take the time to try it on and see how it fits me NOW (not how I want it to fit me when I lose weight, but me, as I am right now)? No? Great, it goes immediately in the Go Away pile. Yes? Ok, that goes in the Pending pile. Once all the clothing is sorted this way, I take the time to try on the Pending items - if it fits comfortably, and makes me smile to wear it, I put it back (sorted) in the closet - hung up, folded, whatever. If it doesn't fit properly, right now, it goes in the Go Away pile. My home is my HOME, not a storage unit. I'm not hanging onto things for later - that leads to me hoarding. If I can't use it now, it needs to be gone. So, to clean and purge, each area I work in looks like a tornado hit it. The upside is, I get rid of more things this way, because absolutely NOTHING goes back in it's place unless I use it regularly and love it, so the end result is far more effective.
I feel both embarrassed and thrilled; embarrassed because this hoarding and control issue ever became a problem to begin with, and that I had to hit such a crushing low to truly realize that I needed to fix this problem for my own well being, and thrilled because, now that this purging process is underway, it feels different than the surface tidying that I've done before. This is a completely new way for me to look at every aspect of my life - relationships, our home, the farm. Do what feels right and what works, and absolutely don't hold onto things that don't serve these positive changes. Though I'm still working on cleaning and purging, primarily in our home, this is a lasting difference that has made remarkable changes for the better in my life, and for that, I am truly grateful.
Here's a small example of my cleaning/purge efforts, paying off - my office/computer space. I still have a small box of papers to go through, and final cleaning (vacuum). I removed everything from the space first, dusted all the furniture, then went through every piece of paper, creating files as needed to keep it all organized, and making a "recycle" file for good measure.