It was the domed lid that finally doomed it. If it had had a flat top, great-grandma‘s Italian trunk might have stuck around as a “just OK” coffee table. It lingered among my possessions as long s it did because after all, it did offer storage potential, and then there was the fact that it had been in the family almost a century.
I surprised myself one day shortly after the break-up of my marriage by getting rid of the trunk. I was in a “getting rid of” mood, but I knew the decision wasn’t a whim I’d regret. The wood and metal trunk with its carvings and rivets was beautiful, but really didn’t suit my taste.
I asked my sisters if they wanted it and when they replied with definitive negatives, I loaded it up and dropped it at Goodwill. There was no period of languishing in the garage, no waiting for an eBay buyer, no dragging it to consignment shop where I knew it had a little selling potential. It was a simple and respectful, “Arrivederci!” The sense of relief was trunk-sized.
Every sentimental item has a point at which it will go. A person can either decide during their lifetime where, how and when they want these things distributed or they can let the burden of these decisions shift to the shoulders of the next generation. These decisions are obviously personal and individual, but they are usually based on a few different circumstances.
Time is probably our best friend when it comes to decluttering. At some point, enough time will have gone by that the item holds no charge or relevance for us anymore. Or it may be that we have matured to a point that we no longer need to hold on to something. We may feel a sense of abundance we didn’t have in our younger days, and so can let go of something with perceived monetary value more easily.
An example of decluttering sentimental items using the time factor is the young adult finally ready to part with their stuffed animal collection, Disney DVDs and X-Box games. And for goodness’ sake, Legos.
Another example would be someone going into a second marriage and finally ready to let go of correspondence and anniversary cards from the divorced spouse. However, I meet too many women unwilling to let go of a diamond, no matter how nasty the memories are.
Time is also the ticket for helping us get rid of old college and career-related documents. Almost all of that stuff becomes outdated and irrelevant at a certain point.
Another great ally of the declutterer is space. Moving from one home to another helps us reassess the value of packing up once again that childhood set of Encyclopedia Brittanica or Grandma’s fragile, and usually too feminine for today’s tastes, place settings for 12. This goes double if you are down-sizing.
If you’re one of the many people who have boxes of photos in frames, consider whether or not you will ever have a gallery wall of family photos again. The gallery wall was a very 1990s trend, but not so popular with the current minimal aesthetic. Take the photos out of the frames and box them, which will cut the size and weight of that sentimental clutter down significantly.
Jewelry from abusive boyfriends, clothes from a friend you no longer speak to, Dear John letters and other items that remind you of relationships gone sour are probably best out of your space. Like the diamonds mentioned above, not all 24k jewelry and cashmere sweaters have good vibes.
What kind of feelings do the sentimental items give you? If you get the blues looking at or thinking about the item, it’s a clue your life might be improved without it. I see so many wood boxes containing the ashes of a pet. I always encourage people to scatter or bury these as there is very little point in storing them—in my opinion, it doesn’t honor the spirit of the animal and ultimately, someone is going to put the box in a landfill some day if you don’t do anything better than keep it on a shelf or in the closet.
It’s appalling, but too many entire estates of highly cluttered individuals end up in dumpsters. Most families do not have the resources that the tremendous amount of work handling the estate of a cluttered individual with care requires and some folks have no heirs at all. The less cluttered and more organized an estate is, the more respect and care will be given to each item by your executors.