I never considered myself a real hoarder until I was looking for a screwdriver in the middle drawer in the kitchen this week. You know the drawer – I am sure we all have one and it isn’t just me. The drawer full of bits of string, old tea towels, odd nails, elastic bands, offcuts of foil, menus from Chinese takeaways and various size allen keys. I found the screwdriver eventually and as I started to squash everything back in, cross that the drawer wouldn’t close until I rammed it in frustration, I wondered what use any of this junk was anyway and did something I have never done. I started throwing things away.
My house isn’t that untidy – I have the usual amount of objects scattered over the usual amount of rooms. I like to collect weird and wacky wooden ornaments and have quirky art on the walls. Our books slightly overspill the bookshelves and I have paper piled on my desk – but I don’t have rooms and rooms full of plastic bags and broken plastic like real hoarders do. However, I have always had a tendency to keep things. Really mundane things that have no meaning to anyone else – but are there to remind me of an event, or a place, or a person. A stone. A bit of wood. A feather. A bus ticket. Unfortunately, over the 50 plus years I have been on this planet – a lot of these bits and bobs merge into one big mess and many items have no significant relevance anymore.
When I was younger, I had an old Huntley & Palmers biscuit tin I kept Significant Things in. I still have it and wouldn’t dream of chucking any of the contents away. Inside is like a cabinet in a museum of curiosities and although the blue puppy collar, a cut out picture of a palomino horse, a troll doll, a Dennis The Menace Fan Club badge and a plethora of young person railcards wouldn’t mean anything to anybody – one look and I am transported back to my youth and it pleases me. Youthful me, confined to one tin. However, over time I have attached significance to many more useless objects – especially since having children and I now have numerous trunks, boxes and drawers stuffed full of nonsense. I have never thrown one drawing away my sons did for me. Never. Each and every scribble is stuffed in a big basket in the loft. Each stick they gave me as a ‘present’ I have squirrelled away – each stone they drew a little face on, or stuck google eyes on - or the ones shaped as love hearts, I put in a box or in a dish or in a drawer. And I don’t have the heart to throw any of it away even though the drawings in the loft have been nibbled by mice and many of the sticks have disintegrated into dust– I am hoarding these little treasures as if my life depended on it.
As I was sorting out my middle drawer – being quite harsh I thought as I threw a ribbon away that was originally attached to a birthday present I was once given (although I couldn’t remember the present or who bought it) – it got me thinking about what is going to happen to all the things when I am no longer around? I am not talking about the really sentimental items such as the little ‘baby box’ I have with their first teeth, curls and first shoes or even wedding photographs and old letters which do have transferable meaning and may become part of an heirloom. I’m talking about all of the junk. The stuff that takes up room in the middle drawers of our life. The really useless paraphernalia I have somehow attached a sentimental value to. I found a disintegrated popped balloon from one of the children’s birthday parties along with a pile of spent birthday candles. No use to anyone – and if I couldn’t remember what child or what birthday; how on earth will anyone else? Surely, I am just creating future headaches for my sons – giving relevance to bits of old rubber and sticks? If that is what I am leaving them for an inheritance, what does that really say about me or my state of mind? And it doesn’t just stop at the spare room and loft in the house. I have some stuff in storage. ‘Remember making this?’ I exclaimed joyfully when we were sorting through a few things recently in the storage unit as I proudly held up a broken wooden car with wonky wheels to my son. ‘You made it in year 2!’ ‘Nope’ came his reply. Then he burst my bubble. ‘Oh, hold on – yeah. A group of us had to make it and I drew the short straw and got stuck having to bring it home’. So, I am giving houseroom and paying storage fees for other people’s memories too.
Does the fact I am hoarding all of this stuff mean I can’t let go of the past? That I need bits of string and broken plastic to delve deep inside myself to evoke memories? Do I actually need to remember every single detail of every single birthday party or holiday– guilty should I forget an important event? Or am I attaching too much significance to what actually is important - worried if I throw something away, I will throw away that memory? Before I had children, and I had time on my hands, I used to buy postcards and fill up albums when travelling or visiting new places - and although it is great to look back and reminisce; I don’t remember those holidays any better than the ones spent as a family where my albums are now all blank and all I have are hurried photos taken on my phone. The fact we have each other to remind, recall and prompt is more valuable to me than any bits of old card and a rail ticket I may have stashed for future reference.
Since battling physically with the middle drawer earlier in the week, I have thought long and hard about my dilemma. And I have decided I need to condense. To refine. To reduce. To concentrate on the really important things that summarise my past and get rid of the irrelevant, taking just what I need into the future. I have started to be harsh. I have started to sort out and have actually thrown some bits in the bin. And you know – letting go is quite therapeutic. A positive catharsis.
Perhaps it is healthy we all do that and use it as a metaphor for life – just take with you only what you need and leave all the baggage and junk behind. The past can stay there. The future me doesn’t need dead candles and shrivelled balloons. The future me would have learnt to let it go.
I’m sure my sons will appreciate it.
© The Real Tilly Fairfax
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