Purging Part 1: Get rid of your memories

 Yeah I know it is not Saturday and if anyone is actually keeping track I am supposed to be posting on Saturday...well that is not happening. I have realized that I am never around a computer on the weekends so instead I will only be posting during the week. So here is the kick off to my trying to live simple series: purging (the throwing stuff away kind not the throwing up kind). Now I have talked about this already but I am going to talk about it again so deal with it.

After you make the decision that your life is too chaotic, cluttered and complicated and that those things are unnecessary, purging is the first thing to do. Purging has many benefits to your new desired lifestyle:

• Gets rid of some of that physical clutter, which will lead to getting rid of the other kinds of clutter too.
• You see progress right away which motivates to you keep going.
• The less stuff you have in the way the more you can do.
• The less stuff you have in your house the less you are going to want to bring unnecessary new stuff in.
• The less stuff you have the more you will use the things you have. 
• Could possible make some money.
• When you move, re-carpet, get water in the basement there is less stuff to move or to damage and in the case of a hurricane and your place is flooded to the ceiling and volunteers have to come and clean out the stuff you horded for years, they will be in a much better mood and will not curse your house for the rest of their lives.
• If feels good to have fewer, more practical and cooler things. (Instead of a ton of crap)

Now if you are like me (sentimental) it is hard to get rid of stuff because of the memories I have attached to it. "Aww that is the stuffed animal my dad won me when I found out my class for 5th grade and was super depressed" But that turned out alright ;) "Oh, my grandma got me that watch one Christmas" But I have yet to wear it, or the one she got me before that one- I do not wear watches. "Haha, Cece was so proud of her practical gift!" But I cannot whistle so therefore cannot use it...so why hold onto it? I was definitely a pack rat most of my life, living with other pack rats where the solution when the stuff reached a breaking point was put it in random boxes and pack it away in storage never to be seen again. What is the point of that? Just because you get rid of stuff does not mean you loose the memories. (I remember the three things mentioned earlier but they are all gone now) This is always the hardest lesson to get across to people on Clean Sweep, Clean House and Hoarders. Also just because that was a gift does not mean you have to keep it forever buried under mounds of other gifts that are never used. I doubt that is what the gift-giver wanted. (But side-note: it is a gift so you can do whatever you want with it now...it is yours..so re-gift it, throw it away, sell it or use the heck out of it- it is yours now.)

Now to be honest you will probably loose some memories. It is called getting older and filling our head with other ones. But, people tend to remember the important things and if you really want to remember something take a picture of you with it or write it down in a journal. Those take up a lot less space.

So in conclusion- purge. I will be struggling with this as I start to go through those randomly packed boxes in storage that were to never be seen again but hopefully I will listen to my own advice.