De-Cluttering

DEAR GEORGE, I’ve been having the same dream for years and years. All of a sudden it dawns on me that I rented a hotel room a year ago in another city, and I’d stored my huge book collection there. I’d forgotten to pay the rent on the room, and now the bill has run into the tens of thousands of dollars. I want my books badly but I can’t imagine paying this amount of money. Usually I wake up in a panic when I’m unable to figure out a solution. What this dream has to do with, I’ve decided, is my and Katja’s accumulating endless possessions over many decades and having to figure out what to do with them before we run out of time. The photos above illustrate the problem. I took these a few weeks ago in my second floor room. It’s been my home office since the late 1970’s as well as a warehouse for all sorts stuff I’ve collected since that time from yard sales and flea markets. Dogs and cats, elephants, soldiers, cowboys, angels, Statues of Liberty, superheroes and villains, jazz musicians, skeletons, ducks, Marilyn Monroe figures, Disney characters, sports trophies, birds, pumpkins, Santas, and many other categories of interest. I didn’t have any system to my collecting other than a rule that nothing in my room should cost more than twenty-five cents. There are a few exceptions, but, by and large, I stuck to my rule. By the late 1980’s I started collecting antique and vintage postcards, and soon my room was lined with steel file cabinets which held my burgeoning collection. Then, perhaps a dozen years ago, everything became completely out of control. I just started putting new acquisitions haphazardly in ever-growing piles in the middle of the floor. I’ve thought many times over the years about doing some house-cleaning, but the task has seemed insurmountable. I’ll do it when I retire, I thought, but now twelve years have gone by since that milestone. Recently we learned that we needed to have a house appraisal in order to renegotiate a home equity loan. The idea of an appraiser coming in and inspecting my catastrophic room horrified me. So I started working on my clean-up task. Now, after twenty-two days, I’ve made major progress. Among other things, I’ve taken about twenty boxes of treasures to the Goodwill. I have to admit that this was a very engaging and satisfying pursuit. Katja says that it’s the most concentrated work that I’ve done since I retired. However, big tasks still remain. If my room was out of control, our attic is even worse. I think that will be the next phase of my activity. It will probably keep me busy for the rest of the pandemic, and, when I get done, I will be ready to re-enter the world of the living. Below are pictures of how my de-cluttered room looks now. I hope I can keep it this neat and orderly. LOVE, DAVE