Minimalism {Part 3}

Now, let me paint a picture for you. If you read Part 1, you now know that I am emotional hoarder and a "just-in-case" hoarder. If you read Part 2, so far, I have shared with you all my triumphs. Now, in Part 3, let me tell you about my downfalls.

Moving into my "storage" bins. My 30-40 huge totes literally filled with my memories. My childhood bins, my wedding bins, my kids keepsakes bins. They covered every shelf in our garage. They are all labeled and neatly stacked.

Just having 5 kids- that alone took up 15 or so totes. Having clothes for both genders and all seasons from birth - 10 years takes up a lot of space!

Like... a LOT of space. It's so many clothes and shoes. Swimsuits and shorts for summer for boys and for girls of ALL AGES. And then winter jackets and scarfs and mittens and hats and boots for BOYS and GIRLS for ALL AGES. How do people do this in the cold states?

Bottom line. I have a lot of bins.

And the thing is, with a lot of them, I barely knew what was inside of them, nor did I USE what was in side of them. The sentimental part of me always reasoned that I would pass these down to our children one day.

Yes... like they really needed 35 bins of my livelihood. But I just couldn't part with these precious memories.

The crazy thing was, I always thought my husband was the wacko. He never had a "childhood" bin like I did. He has a handful of really cute baby photos and some trophies and then... nothing else. I think I actually felt sorry for him at one point thinking that he didn't have a bunch of awesome stuff to pass down to our kids from his childhood.

And then I went in my childhood bins.

And then I felt like the wacko.

Broken watches. Like the actual watch part broken and even the straps broken. Completely unuseable. But clearly, I needed to hang on to them because they meant something to me when I was 7 years old. I hung on to an old pacifier and unused diaper of a baby I helped take care of in high school. I found the dried up rose I had pinned on my shirt at confirmation. The KLEENEX I cried into one Christmas because I was so grateful for all my presents.

Oh yah... and ALL my baby teeth. (Induce vomiting here.)

I literally had a baggy of my HAIR from a haircut when I was in 8th GRADE.

WHYYYYYY?????

I can't believe I am confessing all this but here is to the hope that I am not the only insanely crazy woman out there.

Or... maybe I am.

So... clearly... my grandkids did not need all of these super creepy items. (And this was only tip of the iceberg, friends. There were many more weird items I happened upon.)

Toss in the trash.

Then I began to go through my kids keepsakes bins. Same story. Except I had kept EVERY CARD from EVERY EVENT for EVERY KID. Just too much. I kept the really precious ones and tossed the rest.

So. Much. Trash. This day.

Here's the thing- I had placed so much value on these THINGS. Thinking they had worth and value. That they would mean something to my future grandchildren and their grandchildren and so on. But going through those boxes, I was able to cut the emotional attachments and really pick between the meaningful items that my grandkids would like to see and use one day, and the... well, trash.

This hit me in the emotional area but also was just a wake up call to the fact that I kind of had a problem with not letting go of things. It was very humbling and I had no idea that it was about to take me into an even deeper place.

Stay tuned for what happened next...