Unexpected purge helps declutter home, mind

On a recent weekend my husband announced that things were going to change.

We weren’t going on the typical Sunday family outing. We were going to stay home and clean — spring clean.

My children and I were dumbfounded.

“Today?,” I thought to myself. “I really don’t feel like cleaning today.”

But that’s me every weekend. I’d rather not spend the limited free time I have on housework when I could be going to Costco, running errands or watching a movie. Anything but staying home where I am forced to face the growing piles of neglected chores: the mound of clean laundry engulfing the couch, heaps of unopened mail, bags of items yet to be donated.

It was a painful process.

The piles of stuff we’ve accumulated over the years have become overwhelming. The sweetly written birthday cards year after year. Toys from a few years ago still in unopened boxes. Old school assignments scribbled from kindergarten. Clothes and shoes the kids have outworn, outgrown or forgotten about.

Every year the piles get worse.

My sister’s advice is to get rid of anything we haven’t used (or looked at) in the past six months.

“If it doesn’t have a home, then throw it away,” she says. “It doesn’t belong in your house.”

I really love the idea of keeping a tidy home. But I just can’t fathom the thought of blindly throwing things away without carefully examining their worth. (I have a hard time letting go, even though I know that 99 percent is junk.)

The pack-ratting is a trait inherited from my parents and passed down from my grandparents, who grew up with few belongings in a modest era when people were taught not to be wasteful. But it has gotten out of control.

One by one my husband took garbage bags full of knickknacks out of the kids’ rooms. And one by one I looked through all of them in case a treasure like an irreplaceable photo or priceless piece of artwork was mistakenly dumped in the trash pile.

“Stop going through everything I already looked at,” he yelled. “You’re the problem. They’re just like you!”

He had a point.

The last thing I want to do is teach my children to hold onto things that really bring little to no value to our quality of life. Holding onto “things” doesn’t make one happy or complete. It just creates more clutter — in the home, mind and consciousness.

I was secretly glad that my husband forced us to stay home and tackle the dreadful task of purging. In fact, it felt good after all was said and done. Refreshing even.

Until I saw the pile of laundry.

“She Speaks” is a weekly column by the women writers of the Honolulu Star-Advertiser. Reach Kristen Consillio at kconsillio@staradvertiser.com.