This thought has been on my mind this last week, especially as I begin my decluttering journey. Everything looks important on the surface. It has a purpose and there’s a reason it’s in your home. However, does that reason align with the person you are or are trying to become?

A bigger question with what feels like an endlessly complicated answer. Those are where my thoughts have traveled and now I’m going to share them with you. Hopefully seeing my thought journey might help.

Over the holiday weekend, my husband and I began going through more boxes to unpack into our house. Some of it was stuff out of a storage unit. Those were things I had packed away when we cleaned out my grandparent’s house after moving my grandma into an assisted living home. I thought they would be useful when my husband and I finally got into a house and there was emotional attachment to the things. That’s where the anxiety started bubbling up as we went through things. It was hard seeing that we didn’t need most of it because I already had enough. I was able to place quite a bit into the donation box thankfully, but I was only able to do it because I had mentally prepared myself for it.

Recently (in the last 2 months), I discovered the YouTube channel Clutterbug. I was instantly hooked as I noticed she and I had a similar ADHD personality. It gave me hope while I watched her organizing tips believing that I can be that way too. Traditional organizing has not worked for me, no matter how many times I beat my head against that brick wall. I took the quiz on her website and discovered that I am a butterfly ( a visual organizer). 

(I realize this has seemingly derailed, but I promise it’s all relevant)

It all clicked into place. Why I forgot things existed when I put them away, how I ended up with multiples of everything because I couldn’t remember which doom pile the thing was in, and why I had everything out in the open all the time. The more I watched her videos, the easier it became to alter my mindset when it came to decluttering and organizing our home. 

As we went through some boxes, I realized that as I was putting stuff into the donate box that I was only getting rid of the item, not the memory. From there, I started thinking about why I had so many things and even more importantly, why was I keeping all of it?

When it came time to clean up the room that has become my office (check out the video here), all this got me thinking further into what kind of person I want to become. I still thought of myself as that awkward teenager who had varied interests and wanted to try everything. The bit of information that hadn’t really crossed my mind was, who am I now? 

I’m no longer that awkward teenager or a young 20-something who’s still trying to find her passion. I have found all of that. My passion, what I want to do for a career (at least for the next 10 years), what hobbies I want to stick with because they relax me, the things I want to keep around, etc. So why was I still holding on to everything? What if I changed my mind?

That’s the part that really got to me was how I was defining my identity with what I owned. “Look at all the craft projects supplies I own and the half finished projects laying around!” 

Honestly, that doesn’t convey the best parts of me the way I want them to. With so many hobbies I’ve tried and fully bought supplies for but never came back to laying around, it’s stressing me out and preventing me from remembering who I have become. It’s like being stuck in a previous era of my life. This isn’t how I want to live. 

The realization that I was buying things or idealizing things that I didn’t need all because I let myself be devoured by social media. By other people’s ideas of how I should be living my life. By how other people judge a “successful” life. I lost myself and my voice in all of it. Because of it, I felt like I was buying stuff to fill a void.

This journey to figure out who I am without all the things is only beginning. Decluttering is one of the first steps I’m doing to figure it all out. Right now, what’s important to me are my husband, the cats, my family, my friends, and maybe 3 or 4 hobbies that I genuinely enjoy. Finally pausing long enough in silence, well no videos or podcasts or music playing in the background, helped me look inward to things that are immediately important to me. It’s also helping me figure out who is important to me as well.

Thanks for joining this little journey and I hope you’ll return for me. Until then, safe exploring everyone!