Can I let this go?

Moving day looms in the very near future and time left to get things organised is running out. When I was younger I was all over this sort of thing, but not these days. I’ve been picking away at sorting stuff out and now things have to speed up a bit.

Every day the truth of the phrase ‘The more you have, the more you have to look after’ hits me with a fresh impact.

I am faced with sorting all the random unnecessary stuff I have been lugging round with me for years. It’s been taking up precious space, taking up time and cluttering up my mind. I know I am not alone in this. So many of us go through life collecting things that we don’t actually need or have ceased to need. Then one day, maybe when you’re trying to fit stuff from a four-bedroomed house into a two-bedroomed bungalow like I am, you ask yourself - Why? What am I keeping even half of this stuff for? Who is going to treasure any of it when I’m gone? And who is going to be stuck with the job of sorting it all out? Not a small task as things stand at the moment.

My biggest weakness is for the sentimental stuff, but I’m prepared to stick up for that, at least in moderation. I treasure the things my children have given me over the years. Also selected highlights - mostly the bits that made me laugh - from their school work. Oh, and I can't throw away their brilliant pictures, can I? I’ll be hanging on to those things because they mean something to me.

With a large family, though, you do have to be selective about what you keep. Perhaps most precious of all are the things my children have written to me in cards and letters. I was very proud of myself when I hit on the idea of sticking them all in a memory book which is so much more organised than piles of cards and papers which might get lost and anyway look very untidy. Of course the project of actually getting this memory book done has been ongoing now for a few years while I ‘don’t have time to get round to it at the moment’. And why don’t I have time? Well, like I said, the more stuff you have, the more you have to look after.

Now, when I've gone who is going to be interested in a pair of Bambi bedroom curtains circa 1955? Yes, the very ones that hung in my bedroom when I was a toddler. And for quite a few years after, I seem to remember. I have them with me still. I can’t remember why.

Or my tiny little party dress, also from the 1950s. I have that too. 

Again I can’t remember why. Its so long ago I don't actually remember going to any parties wearing it. But it’s too late now, it has to stay. Along with my first school exercise books, just in case I forget that, aged 6, I made butter at school by shaking creamy milk in a jam jar, or that my baby brother's name was Simon and he was one year old.

Ok, so I’ll keep a couple of boxes of old treasures in the loft. But all other superfluous stuff WILL BE GOING! If I find stuff that I don’t need but has nothing wrong with it (my biggest hoarding category) I will find somebody who does need it or take it to the charity shop. Junk will be going to the recycling centre. Genuinely un-recyclable rubbish (yes I do have some) will go in the bin.

I have a vision now of a life where clutter is at a minimum, I have what I need and nothing that I don’t need. Where housework is kept to a minimum, but the home is cosy, tidy and clean. Where I can enjoy simple pleasures without spending a fortune, and we can get up in the morning, put a picnic and the dog in the car (but not too close to each other!) grab my camera and say – where shall we go today?