Speak free

Clutter

While I’m not a neat freak, the idea of clutter completely freaks me out. Having a house that’s full of knickknacks and sorts of useless little bits and pieces is my idea of a nightmare. What’s worse is when the ornaments and knickknack collections are augmented by stacks of old newspapers, dockets and receipts from fifteen years ago, and mugs with broken handles that have sentimental value. Just throw it out, people! I recently had this issue when my much beloved boyfriend moved in with me. For me, this was great, as it gave me an excuse to throw out all sorts of stuff that I’d been casting my clutter-phobic eye over for a while. Old clothes, dog-eared books, duplicate bits of culinary equipment—it all went, even if it was perfectly good. Admittedly, I did umm and err over where I should put some of it up on ebay, but was unnerved by the idea of it sitting there on my lounge room floor while I waited for the auctions to end. So, to charity and in the bin it all went. My house was beautiful and clean, and ready for my boyfriend to move in. Unfortunately, my boyfriend does not have the same idea about clutter as me. He brought in no less than 30 boxes full of stuff. And by stuff, I don’t mean valuable and useful things that might serve some sort of purpose in a house. I mean stuff. I mean excess pairs of underpants where the elastic has gone wrinkly, and broken wooden spoons, and torn envelopes with addresses scribbled on them, and Christmas cards from 1994. Oh, the heated ’conversations’ we had. In the end, I managed to get him to clear most of it out, but I’ll have to do the rest naughtily and secretly. The moral of this story is that no one needs this much stuff. No one in this day and age possibly needs all the stuff they’ve accumulated over a life time. I think personally, that we should all get over it, move it out, and move on to living an uncluttered life!