Hoarders

Has anyone else seen the show on TLC, called Hoarders?

I started watching this a few months ago, and had to come to a few tough realizations about myself.

Hello, my name is Deborah, and I am a hoarder.

Thankfully I have not reached the level that the people on this show reach by the time they are on camera, but I must admit, looking around, and watching the show, not only could I see that I had become one of THEM, but, boy, could I empathize with them. I knew exactly how they felt as they dug through their piles of belongings, trying desperately to figure out what to keep, and what to let go of.

A few months ago, my husband convinced me to essentially take a dare...if I could fill up a dumpster that he would arrange to have dropped off in our driveway for a week...a 14 foot one..he would get plane tickets for myself and the kids to go on a flight to visit a dear friend of mine.

It was a painful week, in some ways, but also a good week. We did manage to fill up the dumpster, and, to my shock and horror, even after getting rid of (no joke) a literal tonne of stuff, we still have a LOT of stuff in the house that I am constantly having to clean up, sort, or hide away. I am trying hard to keep at it, to learn to let go of things....but it's really hard when everything either has a use, a memory, or an emotional attachment.

I have several rooms that I have managed to keep somewhat under control lately, but there are a lot of rooms that, well, still need a lot of work.

That week was painful in shock waves, too...there was the initial getting-rid-of-useful-stuff painfulness, then the pain of Son realizing he had mistakenly put a favourite book in there, moments after they had hauled it away...and then several weeks later, the realization that in getting rid of a bunch of old VHS tapes that had stuff we had recorded on them, I had accidentally gotten rid of the one that had Daughter's baby videos on it. That one still hurts, but I know in the big picture, the main thing is that I have Daughter...and the memories are there in my head. I just wish I could have shown HER the videos.

In any case...that is my current challenge...to finish what I started and not get discouraged. Bit by bit, I'm hoping to sort through the entire house, including those scary spots that have ended up being danger zones...you know...the walk-in closet where everything gets shoved just before company arrives, the little cupboard where all the stuff goes "until I find a proper place for it"...places like that.

Wish me luck. Eventually, I will get a handle on this, and then maybe I won't have to clean for 4 hours a day, just to turn around and find it's all messed up again.