The Past Isn’t So Easily Decluttered, Marie Kondo, But I’m Trying …
Marie Kondo would have been proud of me the day I was packing up my things and leaving my ex-husband. Fueled by fear, anger and profound sadness, I moved quickly and deliberately through my house, grabbing clothes, books and knick-knacks I knew no longer fit the person I would become once I walked out the door. By the time I was done, I had a giant pile of discarded items in my living room reminiscent of the towering mountain of dirt and broken flower pots Richard Dreyfuss builds in “Close Encounters of the Third Kind.” I felt a rising sense of purpose when I looked at everything I was leaving behind.
Struggling to accept that I was finally divorcing him, my ex-husband wouldn’t let me haul the personal possessions of my old life off to the Goodwill. I still think of him standing in our silent house, looking at all those reminders of the small-town wife I couldn’t pretend to be anymore, our cats intertwining around his legs, unaware I was never coming back.
Since moving to Washington, D.C., five years ago, I’ve tried to maintain that same sense of decisiveness with what I need in my life and what I don’t, even when it pushes me out of my comfort zone. But I’ve noticed some of my personal possessions are not so easily discarded or assigned very clear categories in terms of how they make me feel.
Most of the time — and this is a popular criticism of Marie Kondo’s philosophy — throwing things away is not a luxury I can afford. I don’t necessarily have the money to replace unwanted items that no longer spark joy. But in other instances, there’s something I own that’s deeply connected to a part of my past I can’t say goodbye to just yet. For example, shortly after I got married, my Mom made me a gorgeous quilt for the king-sized bed my ex-husband and I shared. It’s truly an heirloom, but every time I look at it I’m haunted by the lonely nights I slept alone and other bad experiences that happened between my ex and me. I tried to use it for the first year or so in D.C. but realized I couldn’t deal with it. I finally broke down and told my Mom about it, and knowing all the terrible things that happened to me during my marriage, she understood. She’s now making me a new quilt, and the old one is in my closet and used for when my friends stay with me.
But the hardest thing for me to throw out hasn’t been an item I owned before my divorce; it was something I acquired since moving to D.C.
This past fall, my married sisters visited me for a long weekend. I love it when they come to see me but also have to prepare myself mentally for the recommendations they often have about how I can improve. Most of the time I welcome their suggestions, as they love me and want the best for me, but in rare instances they can drive me crazy and even make me angry.
During this most recent trip, my younger sister became convinced that my TV, which was ancient and only allowed me to watch Amazon Prime, had to go. She told my Mom I needed a new one for Christmas. And before I knew it, a new Amazon Fire TV was waiting for me downstairs in my apartment building.
You would think I would be over the moon about a new TV, but I wasn’t. I was actually kind of a mess because of it.
The issue wasn’t getting rid of my old TV but rather the TV stand on which the new one would now be installed. I had ordered the TV stand when I first moved to the city, and it came in 50 different parts I carefully counted and spread out on the floor, just like the instructions recommended. Using my new toolbox I acquired as a single woman living on my own again, I spent three days inside my apartment listening to punk rock, crying, swearing and determined I would put the damn thing together. Sometimes I had to start over on certain sections. It was one of the biggest challenges I’ve ever conquered as a divorcée — I’m not the type who loves working with tools. Once I successfully finished assembling the TV stand, gleaming glass shelving and all, every time I looked at it, it was a reminder that I was a badass who could conquer anything.
The problem: my new TV my Mom got me would not attach to my old TV stand. The bolts it came with did not fit into the designated holes. I tried to make it work, talking to the helpful staff at various hardware stores around town, bringing pieces of the TV stand with me so they could help me measure and select the correct bolts I needed. No matter how many sizes I tried and how closely I followed the instructions, nothing would secure the TV to the metal bars of the stand.
During my third trip to the hardware store, I stopped to get a coffee on the way home and found myself sobbing. I realized I was upset because I was revisiting how hard my first year in D.C. was when I was figuring out so many things by myself, not asking for help when I needed it. The TV stand represented that history and this gift from my Mom was inadvertently causing me to reflect on that time because of the need to take it apart and install something new on it.
I didn’t want to get rid of the TV stand. It meant too much to me. After telling a friend about the situation, I learned the Amazon TV I had was a newer model that would not attach to the stand unless I ordered a special part online. Exhausted from making several trips already to deal with this issue, I gave up and simply placed the TV on the glass shelving, the metal bars unused and jutting behind it. I might eventually detach the bars, or as one loving friend jokingly recommended, turn them into an artistic adornment of some kind. But I can’t give up the TV stand.
It’s tempting to want to throw away so much of what we owned in our former lives, especially if it’s all associated with a bad time we hated. But the objects of our past serve a purpose: they can cause painful memories to resurface, but they also remind us how much we’ve survived. And sometimes you just have to build on what you own, realizing you’ve become stronger, and can give your life’s possessions a new meaning.
The Past Isn’t So Easily Decluttered, Marie Kondo, But I’m Trying …
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