Have you ever seen the documentaries about “hoarders?” OMG, isn’t that amazing, what some people do, what they live with? And, yes, I have known and do know some hoarders. People that can’t easily move about their house or apartment and have paths they have to make to get to another room, often with stuff piled up to the ceiling. It is real. It is unbelievable, at least to me and non-hoarders. An illness? Well, yes!
So, in all honesty, I must admit, I am no “neat freak” either. Yes, I’m somewhere in between. ( Please don’t ask my husband, he’d place me more on the hoarder side of the spectrum, but I won’t get into that here). Speaking of “neat freaks,” I’ve seen documentaries on them also, and that can be a bit abnormal sometimes, when people are extreme in that practice.
So, a couple of years ago I read about this book on the practice of “Swedish death cleaning” and it got my interest and so I bought the book. It was very popular, and I was getting older and I realized I needed to simplify my life so when I go to my “reward” of the next existence (okay, death, to be crude), I would not leave my survivors with a horrible mess to go through and clean up. Not the stuff we like to think about, usually, but, well, it’s going to happen some day, like it or not. I’m not much for denial. Denial has not worked well in my life as a habit to promote and live by.
I know many of you have had your time of cleaning up the clutter and mess of dealing with the passing of parents and others. Not pleasant, is it? A whole lifetime of “stuff.” It has to be taken care of, let go of, released. So, I figured I had better at least start cleaning up my lifetime accumulation of crap, so maybe this book would get me started in that direction.
For a normal person, it does feel great to clean things up and live a more simple, purposeful life. I admire people I know who live like that. I hope to get there some day, but I see a lot of work ahead of me. As the book says, it is a slow process with many pitfalls ahead once one gets started in seriously doing “death cleaning.” Oh, just that term bothers me, but being the stoic I am I realize it is the truth. We’ve taken a lifetime making our mess and if we have any integrity and honesty and compassion for those who are going to be left with our “clean up” project one day, we’d better get started and just “dig in.”
The ideal clean up and organization will probably never be achieved but it needs to be initiated. Procrastination just makes it worse. The morbid aspect of it all just makes procrastination the easier path to take. Well, at least last wills and testaments and a trust have been achieved, so now it’s time to handle the messy part. Like I say, I admire those of you who have cleaned up your lives and are keeping it simple. I hope I’m heading in that direction. Well, I am… I just hope I can keep up the momentum. Got to keep a positive attitude, I guess, just like with everything else in life. It can’t get me down, that would be a disaster. “One step at a time….”
Wally