The Bare Necessities

De-cluttering is not for the feint of heart. It requires a kind of grit and determination employed, I assume, primarily by those brave souls who enter Iron-Man competitions or give birth. Yet I find myself wearily walking by my closet several times a day, peeking to see if by some miracle the contents have sorted themselves out - before facing the realization that no, it is all still there - mountains of items that at one time I just "had to have" in random retail outlets and which have hung there un-worn and un-loved for months and in some cases, years. Yesterday I filled three huge bags full of items to be donated and barely made a dent. What is wrong with this picture? Ditto for our kitchen with shelves lined with items for the entertaining we rarely do or the crawl space which has boxes full of items that have not seen the light of day since the day we moved into this place - the random miscellaneous mountains of material we have carried with us from place to place. The sad thing is we are people who have regularly and routinely been the types who put our items out for collection when groups like the Diabetes Association come around - and so this current mass of merchandise is but a fraction of what we have already discarded. And I vow with this move - as with every move - things will be different. We will be ruthless, emotionally detached - singing "you can't take it with you" as we go...drawer by drawer...closet by closet...until nothing but what really matters, remains.