I am a stealth purger, forced to live in the shadows. If there were a court of law with juries and judges of packrats, I’d be led before them in shackles, their angry accusing eyes casting withering looks of disdain. The judge, outraged and shocked, wouldn’t hesitate to mete out the sentence for my capital offense. “You threw it AWAY? How could you?”
In my case, the judge looks suspiciously like my husband, King Packrat. Over two decades of marriage we have gone many rounds in the ring over the issue of keeping or tossing. Before we got married, our premarital counselor told us we “complemented” each other, which as it turns out was a nice way of saying we were complete opposites and we’d better buckle up.
I organize in files. He organizes in piles. His system drives me to the edge of my sanity as his piles grow and expand by the bedside or on the coffee table, where eventually they will topple and be tripped over (usually by me). Impossibly, he seems to know vaguely what is in each pile, sliding his fingers down towards the middle and plucking a rumbled paper from the stack, where it lay between junk mail and trade journals. Which is why, if the pile is moved or its items shelved or neatly put away, he panics and the tirades begin. Where did you put my stuff? I’ll never be able to find anything! His justification is that he’s prepared for any eventuality. You need it, he’s got it, and he loves to be able to produce just the thing. This is us, in a nutshell:
But see, he’s a busy guy and even a casual sifting through the piles reveals that not everything in there is worth holding on to. Gum wrappers? Catalogs for past conferences? Childhood report cards? This is a man who, at 47, still keeps pictures from first grade in his wallet, a wallet that is so fat with “keepsakes” it threatens to ruin him chiropractically.
Periodically, to maintain walkable pathways and useable shelf space, I purge. Gently, but with a giddy sort of uncontainable glee. I am unsentimental and cold, he said, as I tossed page after page of the kids’ school work and drawings. We might need that some day, he said, as I threw I away outdated science text books from college, donated bags of too-small clothing, and hauled to Goodwill boxes and bags of household detritus. A month after I die, I point out, you will be featured on TLC’s Hoarders!
No yard sales! Never a yard sale! I had one. Once. He prowled the tables, secretly pocketing items and taking them back inside, incredulous that I would sell perfectly good things. Apparently this stems from some long-held childhood resentment that his mother once sold his Matchbox cars to a friend at a yard sale, cars he believes could no doubt pull our country out of debt with their current market value. It’s always the mom’s fault.
A messy desk is a sign of genius, he quips. Studies have shown that disarray can boost creativity and get people to think outside the box. Cleanliness is next to godliness, I counter. Some truth there as well. People in clutter-free environments tend to make more moral, healthy choices, their clean conscience a reflection of their surroundings; chaos begets chaos.
Clutter, to me, is a choking ivy. I cannot abide. In our digital age, it’s gotten easier to tamp down the clutter. You can scan the best of your kids’ artwork instead of keeping an entire bin from each grade. Pinterest can show you how to make achingly cute bulletin boards or displays of 
choice items. Pinterest is an organizer’s fetish. And the Container Store! After an hour walking the aisles in there, I start hyperventilating and need to breathe into a paper bag, one pulled from a color-coordinated plastic bin and labeled with the appropriate font.
My father, widowered twice, has had the unenviable task of sorting through two lifetimes of belongings. He is approaching his 80’s and feels the Burden of Stuff, knowing all too well you can’t take it with you, no matter how clever you are. He lightens his load with generosity, offering random items each time he sees us. While we appreciate his impulse, we all carry our own acquired loads. With the death of my mother’s parents, some in her family were so consumed by greed and lust for stuff that it ended in murder and a prolonged court case, like something straight off NBC’s Dateline. We watched in disbelief and when my mother herself passed away, there was no scrabbling, grabbing, or conniving for any of her things. They were Just Things and would not bring her back or make the memory of her any sweeter.
Maybe it is that realization that makes it easy for me to live with an open hand. If I have it and you need it, help yourself. If it doesn’t add peace or benefit to my life, out it goes. Have you moved recently? Nothing makes you face the excess stuff in your life than being overwhelmed by mountains of boxes full of stuff you’d mostly forgotten about.
While my husband is out of town this week, I’ve been able to come out from the shadows and organize without reprisal. Don’t worry, hon, I haven’t touched anything vital to your existence. Plus, I know he’ll be bringing home suitcases full of Stuff and eventually I’ll have to start all over. It’s the Circle of Life.
This is one of the funniest things I’ve read. As an ex-on-the-verge-hoarder and my partner being a almost-minimalist, we did this dance many times. In the end it was a simple book that managed to transform my crazy packratism into a sudden Super-purger. So while I was sat on the opposite fence to you, I can now see how it must be to dance this dance. 🙂
I’m chuckling as I read your comment. It’s good to know we are not alone–the struggle is real! Glad you enjoyed!