Moving on is not failure

Well, I did it. It took me 6 years, but I finally got rid of my college notebooks and will get rid of (most) of
my textbooks this weekend.

Why is this a big deal? Well, I have a huge emotional attachment to clutter, as well as a tendency to
say “Oh, I’ll use this one day.”

But this is much more. Getting rid of these items was me finally saying, “I will let go of who I was, and
embrace who I am now.”

Except in my head that comes out as, “I wasted four years of my life getting an anthropology degree and
am now admitting that it was worthless and will never pursue that lifestyle again” followed by “Wait,
but what if I do pursue a Master’s in Anthropology? Think of all the money I will save!”

The fallacy of thought 1

Those were four of the hardest, most wonderful years of my life. I learned what it was like to live on
my own, and be placed in a lot of uncomfortable situations. I shared a room for the first time in my life,
and had to live with total strangers. I met a wide variety of people, and was put in situations I never
dreamed possible. I had to eat in a public place by myself! (Seriously, that was terrifying the first year)

I learned how to present an argument, how to speak in public without fainting, and that listening to
German Opera while hung-over was a bad idea. I pushed myself to the limit and then beyond, and
learned when to pull myself back. I learned a wealth of information that I will probably never use, but
loved learning it.

I was given the opportunity to have experiences that few people have, like excavating prehistoric
hunting ground, camps, and making obsidian blades. I was able to excavate sites at two Presidential homes
(Monticello and Mount Vernon), and co-authored and presented an archaeological report to the people
whose books I had studied in class.

I was given a safe environment where I could learn to make good decisions (like having a friend walk me
home when I worked late at night) and bad decisions (like riding a bus home alone after having a few
too many drinks).

I was able to more clearly define who I was, and who I did not want to be.

I was able to strengthen my relationship with my parents, because they were no longer there. At 18 I
thought I was “way smarter” than my parents. At 20…I only hoped I could be half as smart as them.

I also firmly believe that my education in anthropology helped shape me into the parent that I am today.
Sleep patterns, reactions to crying, breastfeeding/weaning ages and allergies were among the many
things that I studied both in local context and on a global scale. This helped to form my parenting style
and reinforce that even though that style is not mainstream America, it is normal in a global setting and
(through my studies and my 16 month experience as a parent) in an evolutionary sense.

The fallacy of thought 2

It has been 6 years since I graduated college, and don’t remember most of the basic information
relating to my field. I would definitely need to take the basic courses over again, and chances are the
information has changed greatly over that time (more if you consider I took the first course in 2002).
These books are probably 8 editions too old and I would have to re-buy everything anyway.

But you know…there may be someone out there who would want them for their library, and is just
thinking “If only someone out there had an Archaeological Theories book from 2005 they didn’t need.”

Clutterbug

It may seem like I am obsessed with clutter, and perhaps I am. You see, for me the clutter is not
just “things” but much more. I’ve always glossed over articles on organization thinking that the writer
doesn’t get me at all, doesn’t get how hard it is to “just” get rid of something.

Kick the Clutter by Ellen Philips was an eye opener for me. I felt like she was the first one who
understood that, to me, these items weren’t just things that had to be thrown away, but parts of me.

I am a clutterer for two reasons.

1) “I can fix this!” I am one of those people who always has looked at the broken toy or missing
piece as a challenge. When I was 10 my dog chewed off my Barbie’s hand. Instead of letting my
parents throw her away, I made her a wonderful bandage and just worked her wound into any
storylines.

2) “Emotional attachment”. This is where the non-emotional attachment people fail to understand.
It’s not just clutter, it has a story. The story may be as simple as “a friend who drifted away from
me gave me that and it reminds me of them” or as complex as “my great-grandmother sent me
that chicken before she died and she'll never be able to give me anything else”, but they all have ties.

Now why am I like this?

I think part of it is my past. When I was young my parents and I lived in Kuwait and were in the
US visiting relatives during the summer of 1990. When Iraq invaded and occupied Kuwait, we lost
everything. My parents had to figure out how to survive (with a 6 year old girl) on the money they had in
their wallets (because they could not access our Kuwait bank from the US) and their brains.

For a while, we lived with my grandparents while my parents tried to get jobs. It’s difficult to get a
job when you have no professional clothes, no vehicle, and no means to acquire the objects. It’s also
difficult to get an apartment when you have no money, and no job.

As an adult, just the prospect of this terrifies me, and I can’t even imagine how my parents managed to
pull it off. To literally start from scratch, with nothing but the clothes on your back…yet not be able to
get government assistance. But, they pulled it off, and a year later Kuwait was once again opened and
we went back to help rebuild.

These events placed the following thought in my head. “You can lose everything, so fast.”

As a result, I cling to “things” because I never know when they will be gone. I cling to money because I
never know when an event will happen that will cause it to disappear. In my mind, I can’t get rid of this
stupid $5 decoration that has been in a box for years, because I don’t know if I’ll be able to replace it.

But I’m trying, and I’m finally feeling like I’m making strides.

Part of it is due to my husband, who started the process by accidentally throwing away 3 trash bags of
my things when we moved. In his defense, they were in trash bags. In my defense, they were in trash
bags because I had run out of moving boxes, and the trash bags were in the back of my closet, waiting
for me to sort them as I had moved a week earlier.

We were driving somewhere when he asked me what was in the trash bags he threw out earlier,
because they felt like loads of books! My heart stopped, and I felt like I couldn’t breathe as I realized
what he had done. My books, my nick-knacks, my…I don’t even remember. In fact, even that day I
didn’t remember what was in those trash bags. The only thing I know that I lost (and still mourn) was my
diary, which I wrote in daily from the day I graduated high school until the day I graduated college.

It still makes me cry a bit when I think about that diary. All of my hopes, all of my dreams, all of my
sorrows were in that diary. It recorded the good times and the bad times. It had all of my crushes and
vents and not a little poetry that I wrote. My times of great depression were recorded in there, when I
thought that I was not worth the air that my lungs used to breathe, and how no one loved me.

But I still went on.

FlyLady also helped. Her thought is “If you don’t love it, or need it, give it to someone who will”
(paraphrasing there). That mindset has helped me, so so much. Maybe I could use the extra knife set
one day (that I bought 8 years from Wal-Mart for $10 but hey , it still works) but somewhere out there is
a single mom or just-on-their-own adult who NEEDS it.

And now…the baby stuff. The onesies and the dresses that not only hit me on the “omg my Kaylee wore
this when she was just a newborn and so tiny and precious” side but also the “one day I might have
another baby who can wear these” side.

So I told myself, you get to keep 1 large plastic bin for “one day” and that’s it. Realistically, we are a one-
and-done household. A lot of things would have to align in order for me to have a second kid, but that is
another post.

I then sent a box of clothes to a good friend who had a baby girl, because it helped to send it to
someone I knew would use and appreciate the items.

I then sent 3 boxes of clothes and baby items to our local Abbacare center. They provide food, shelter,
counseling, and a whole host of other good things to women in my city who are all alone and pregnant/
have infants.

I received so much help with Kaylee, that I could not imagine doing it on my own, with no income, and
no support system. Maybe someday I could use the receiving blankets again, and sure saving $10 would
be nice, but these women NEED them now, and don’t have the $10 to spend.

Now, all of this actually is a set up story for the next post, “Letting go of the past is not failure”