WHY IS DECLUTTERING SO HARD?

I received this card from my granddaughter, Rylie, quite a few years ago.  It hangs above my desk and will remain there until I'm gone...

Most of us have been there.  

It happened to me this weekend while I was clearing my dresser-top, cleaning out my tool-shed and beginning to declutter my garage...

I continually come across stuff that I should pitch, but I just can't bring myself to do it.

• the old TV speaker bar - maybe it can be fixed...
• old rabbit fence and posts - I might have a garden again...
• a New Brighton High School pendant - memories, pressed between the pages of my mind!
• a DairyLand pig's dinner button - maybe it's worth something?
• a frozen-up hedge trimmer - maybe it can be repaired?
• a weed-whacker that Travis left behind - maybe I can get it running...
• two pair of cuff links - hey, styles change...
• a faucet we replaced in our kitchen - I should install it in our camper!

You realize that I could go on...

Don't laugh too hard!  Your list would be just as long - only different...🤣

We're not all hoarders - just sentimentalists.   

I'm reading a Bodie and Brock Thoene novel right now:  Ashes of Remembrance.  The following paragraph caught my attention:

Kate helped Mary Elizabeth lift a heap of ashes that had been over the girls' bedroom.  With a cry of discovery, Mary Elizabeth pounced on a hand mirror.  The glass was cracked and the silver frame bent.  "This was your grandmother's," Kate said in a weary voice.  "I know you don't remember her, Mary Elizabeth, but once she went all the way to Belfast to visit a cousin, and she brought this lookin' glass back from that trip.  She held it wasn't the thing that was important, it was the memory. 'Things are just place-holders for memories,' she used to tell me."  Kate stared over the debris and slowly turned in place.  "Remember my words, sister.  You may have to speak them to me."  (p.101)

There it is!  A nugget of truth for all of us...'Things are just place-holders for memories.'

• Travis bought that speaker bar for us!
• I started gardening in New Middletown, where the garden grew along with the church!
• New Brighton High School reminds me of my growing-up days!
• It was my Dad that took me to DairyLand for that pig's dinner!

Starting to see the connection?  

It won't apply in every instance, but it certainly will in some.

Truth be told, the hedge trimmer needs to go, along with the weed whacker and the cuff links.  It's my job to sort through this stuff and make determinations.  I'm being very deliberate [at age 69] to diminish the clutter to make my departure for Heaven easier on my kids.  

Besides, the memories abide - even if the trigger has been cast (or given) away.