My house is a mess. True, it’s less of a mess than it was a month or so ago when I finally admitted the problems all this damned stuff is causing, but it’s still a mess.
It was no single thing that led me to this point of reckoning, but the most motivating was realizing the 10-15 pounds I just can’t keep off feels exactly like this mess. This big mess. All this stupid stuff doing nothing but gathering dust and taking up space where oxygen and light used to be---where oxygen and light should be.
So I started tossing and donating, a little here, a little there. And I discovered that, each time something left the house, I felt a little lighter, a little more clearheaded, happier even.
First, a word from our sponsor:
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The Dkos Health and Wellness group meets up every Sunday at 8AM EDT to discuss aspects of health and wellness that impact our lives. Wellness is something that a lot of us are passionate about, and the intent of this group is to provide a forum for some serious discussion of how (and why) every one of us makes our physical and mental health a higher priority in our lives. If you'd like to follow our group, just go to the group page and click "follow". If you'd like to join the group and get involved, just ask!
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It isn’t that my house was unliveable, no stacks of old newspapers lining the walls or plastic bins piled 4-5’ tall. It was just messy and increasingly difficult to live in, full of stuff I’d get to later, didn’t know what to do with, meant to toss, forgot to toss, been so long in the same spot I didn’t even see it anymore. All of it making me sneeze, wheeze, hack, itch and snot all over the place.
Even worse, I no longer felt light. I don’t mean skinny---I mean a feeling of unburdened-ness, able to move easily through the world, pick up and go at a moment’s notice. I like feeling that way. I don’t like feeling as if I have to stuff myself into my house---and my jeans---and drag myself through the world like I’m carrying 8 year old quintuplets on my back. And I really don’t like feeling as if I’m littering the world with useless stuff, wasting space and oxygen on it, blocking the light, shackling myself with the sheer weight of it all.
A month or so ago, I finally just couldn’t take it anymore. And so began The Purge.
How did this happen anyway? The Perfect Storm
This didn’t happen overnight. It happened over time and as a result of The Perfect Storm, a convergence of health and job issues and life.
First, my health temporarily went to hell. Old injuries and physiological anamolies erupted wildly and painfully 3-4 years back, leading me to have to readjust even how I walk and generating bone crushing pain which led to fear of pushing myself too hard which led to less physical activity which led to focusing energy on everything but clearing crap out, all of which led to near-catastrophic messiness.
Balance, people. Balance is good.
Then, too, too busy. My job can be stressful on the best of days and became especially so a few years ago when two people were hired, one of whom, for lack of a better term, was lazy as the day is long, and the other, a lovely person in way over her head. Way over her head. My work load and stress levels escalated exponentially as I scrambled to not just cover their, um, asses, but save the program I work for.
Meanwhile, the quality and quantity of my free time plummeted, free time I’d traditionally reserved for doing nothing but lolling about, reading books, watching clouds, staring at the sun, counting dragonflies. All that: toast. Cluttered mind.
All of which led to ...
Spending way too much money because I was so stressed out and busy and way too exhausted to monitor my spending habits. Which led to a shortage of cash and lots of credit card debt which led to more stress which led to less energy and more stuff which led to even more stress which led to even more debt which led to … well, you know. Complex feedback loops, that kind of thing:
The Health Consequences
Life would be easier if there were no consequences to our actions---or inactions. Unfortunately, there are consequences. A lot of them. And I seemed to suffer all of them.
Excessive clutter and messiness affects:
Our hearts and minds:
Townley Ewer tells WebMD. "What clutter is, is ducking decisions or refusing to make them," she says.
True, the messiness of my house is a consequence of my indecision, but also affects my ability to make decisions. When there’s too much stuff to look at, it’s difficult to decide where to start and therefore easy to not start at all. Stuff is entropic, things fall apart because stuff’s true nature is to gather together and pile up leading to greater and greater indecision leading to even more stress leading to ...
Our stress levels:
I am now intimately familiar with every one of the following---especially 1, 2 & 3.
- Clutter bombards our minds with excessive stimuli (visual, olfactory, tactile), causing our senses to work overtime on stimuli that aren't necessary or important.
- Clutter distracts us by drawing our attention away from what our focus should be on.
- Clutter makes it more difficult to relax, both physically and mentally.
- Clutter constantly signals to our brains that our work is never done.
- Clutter makes us anxious because we're never sure what it's going to take to get through to the bottom of the pile.
- Clutter creates feelings of guilt ("I should be more organized") and embarrassment, especially when others unexpectedly drop by our homes or work spaces.
- Clutter inhibits creativity and productivity by invading the open spaces that allow most people to think, brain storm, and problem solve.
- Clutter frustrates us by preventing us from locating what we need quickly (e.g. files and paperwork lost in the "pile" or keys swallowed up by the clutter).
Clutter, messiness, stuff is not just exhausting, but stressful. And what is they say about stress and weight?
Our weight:
Obesity and stress
People who experience chronic psychological stress have chronically elevated hormone levels, which leads to continually stimulated eating behaviors. In addition, stress hormones increase our cravings for high-calorie foods. And the subsequent eating helps to suppress future feelings of stress. Over the course of a lifetime, the evidence shows that our stress levels shape our eating patterns, and have a major impact on our weight.
We all have necessary stress in our every day lives, stress like omg I forgot to pay the water bill, was that a mouse???, WHY DID I EVER MAKE AN APPOINTMENT TO TAKE MY CAR IN AT 7 AM?, rush hour traffic, alarm clocks, annoying neighbors, insane politicians, strange bumps and lumps, phones ringing or knocks on the door at 3 a.m., TEOTWAWKI, the news, family, doG help us, family.
So with all the stress that’s just a part of daily life, why on earth do we create even more of it with all that stuff, stuff we don’t even want or need?
Besides, the problems generated by too much stuff aren’t just existential. They affect ...
Our lungs:
When I was younger, I could walk into a house and immediately smell whether the closets were well stocked with old bedding or overflowing with clothing, especially when someone had forgotten to do the laundry that week. Or month. It wasn’t a pleasant smell and, today, I think what I was smelling was dust mites.
These days, my house doesn’t smell exactly like that---but after a few hours or days away, I can walk through the door and tell immediately I have too much stuff. And dogs, but mostly stuff.
One of the problems of too much stuff is the inability to really clean very often. Oh, sure, whenever I get a week or so off, instead of flying off to Hong Kong or treating myself to a week of reading and watching films in my pajamas, I can clean. But the daily and weekly cleaning, the kind of maintenance that keeps a house habitable, an oasis, a refuge from the slings and arrows of life, that keeps dust mites at bay? Forget it!
This is especially catastrophic for someone like me who’s allergic to almost everything, including dust mites because ...
If You’ve Got Too Much Stuff, You’ve Got Dust Mites
Dust mites are one of the major indoor triggers for people with allergies and asthma. Dust mite exposure can even cause asthma:
Chronic, ongoing exposure to dust mites at home can dramatically impact the health of people with asthma and those who are allergic or particularly sensitive to mites. These allergens cause an immune system response, known as allergic rhinitis. A dust mite allergy can range from mild to severe. A mild case may cause an occasional runny nose, watery eyes and sneezing. In severe cases, the condition is ongoing, or chronic, resulting in persistent sneezing, cough, congestion, facial pressure or severe asthma attack. People with asthma who are sensitive to mites face an increased risk of flare-ups or an asthma attack.
Dust mites alone aren’t to blame, however. Pootie and woozle and Tweety Pie lovers, you’re also at risk because breathing animal allergens can make respiratory symptoms worse and lead to a decline in the ability of the lungs to function.
Pet allergens are very light weight and small. They remain suspended in the air for a long time, much longer than allergens from cockroaches or dust mites. Because of their microscopic size and jagged shape, pet allergens easily stick to furniture, bedding, fabrics and many items carried into and out of the home. Animal dander is easily spread through the home and out to public places like schools and hospitals. 1 They can be found even in homes and buildings without pets.
My housemates are two dogs (a hound and a, dear doG help me, Catahoula) and two ferocious, gossipy, scheming, too clever for their own good parakeets, soon to be joined by either a house bunny or a turtle. As soon as I decide. Needless to say, the dust bunnies in this house are a sight to behold and the very air thick with critter dust. Which explains a few things.
So, for me, it all boiled down to this: if I want to be healthy and happy and productive and a Good Citizen of the World, I have to clear the crap out, if only so I can easily sweep and vacuum.
The Solution
Much as I hate to say, there is no program, no book, no guru, no special containers or mops that can get the crap cleaned out. In my opinion. You just have to do it. You have to find the inner process that works for you and just do it.
And so, I’ve been tossing and donating. I follow no program whatsoever, only my own instincts because I’ve yet to find A Plan that was worth anything. Not even the hoarding shows.
And programs like Flylady? I tried her years ago, but instead of helping me, she terrorized me. My initial response to her swarms of emails was guilt, guilt that quickly transformed into resentment. Flylady was a nag, a pest, worse than a mean granny with a cane, doing nothing but taking up valuable space in my email. Yet I couldn’t just quit her because everyone said She Was There to Help Me. Finally, I awoke in the middle of the night and quietly quit Flylady, accepting that I was on my own.
So what do I just do when I’m just doing it?
Toss & Donate, Toss & Donate, Toss & Donate: My Secret Program All Yours For Only $5
If someone can use it, it gets donated to friends or family or students or charity.
If one of my nephews can use the very expensive vintage London Fog coat that somehow ended up in my possession and has been sitting in the closet for years, he’s got it. They’re not London Fog kind of guys, so if they don’t want it, it goes to charity.
I live in a pretty impoverished community, so any kind of useful stuff like old antennas (including rabbit ears), dress shirts, dress shoes, 5 qt. crockpots, usable and somewhat fashionable reading glasses, drinking tumblers, dishes that have been packed away for longer than 4-5 years, all of it: donated.
Boxes: recycled.
And every day, I toss. No method to my madness, I just toss. Even while writing this paragraph, I’m building a small pile of stuff to toss: a large empty bottle once filled with magnesium tablets, an old toothbrush, small bits of foil possibly deposited by a packrat, a 15 year old hairbrush that finally collapsed a year or so ago. Just stuff.
I use or recycle packing materials. Today I’m cutting up the brown paper packing I’ve accumulated to line the dresser drawers. I already cut up a bunch of it to line newly painted floor to ceiling shelves (which were hideously old and once resembled a monster in the kitchen), and it’s made the kitchen look tres Crate and Barrel, even though it’s only cost me $60+ in primer and paint.
Plastic packing materials? Recycle.
Despite my annoyance with the bin phenomenon, I do keep them in the house and car trunk for tossing, donating and recycling, but there’s no method to this madness. It just works for me. One plastic bin I keep by the closets and randomly throw stuff into until it’s full. Two smallish straw bins in the kitchen shelves (I’m telling you, the shelves are totally Crate and Barrel and all for a mere $60) are for plastic grocery bags to recycle. Another bin and a large box are in the trunk for recyclable glass and assorted stuff I know someone somewhere can use.
And I empty the trash every day, 2-3-4+ times on weekends. Bit by bit, I’m cleaning out the kitchen and bathroom cabinets, even the cabinets over the washer and dryer. And thanks to The Derrecho, and 3 days without electricity, I even got the refrigerator cleaned out for the first time in 5 years.
Routine does help. Granted, I do nothing but toss trash and fill the donation bin during the week---I wake up too early and get home too late---but Saturdays are always bill paying, laundry and dishwasher days, and I mow during summers, weather permitting. And Sundays are grocery shopping, weed pulling and tree lopping days. This routine actually helps wih cleaning up the mess because I’ve done it for so long, it’s second nature and no big deal to add to it. In between loads of laundry, I sweep, carry any recyclable boxes or glass and donations to the car, gather up trash, plop stuff in donation boxes. When washing dishes, I clean out cabinets. Etc. And it works.
I’ve gotten far enough along that I’ve even start---organizing. wtf?? I’ve never been organized! But here it is, I’ve made a drawer in the bedroom which holds batteries, a hand-crank radio, an LED lantern, an LED flashlight, Tamiflu and other selected emergency items. I mean, I do live in Oklahoma which seems to be under constant siege from meteorological disasters. I’ve put together a doggie health case in a delightful vintage shocking pink make-up case which almost got donated because the plastic’s cracking. Then … then I realized it’s the perfect thing for storing Woozle Vitamin K in case they catch a mouse that’s been poisoned (trust me, the woozles are PITA sometimes, but awesome mousers), wormers, tick and mosquito preventatives, ivermectin just in case, sulfur ointment, etc. And I’ve just gotten started.
So. Progress has been made. I feel so, so much better, but there’s still a lot of work to be done, which would be discouraging except that, a day or so ago, while doing some more tossing from the kitchen cabinets, I found my post-Apocalyptic cumin stash. I know good and well there’s more goodies I really want and use hiding beneath the useless stuff, and that alone makes it worth it. Besides, I feel 100% better than I did just 3 months ago. I can’t wait to see how I feel in six months.
What about all of you? Spill it!!