The freedom of decluttering

As I stood and looked around my heart felt heavy. My life was falling apart and I walked into my 'craft room' and claustrophobia enveloped me, crushing me. Tears streamed down my face and I rubbed my chest feeling like maybe my heart had actually ceased to beat.

I turned and fled the room, looking to find solace in some ice cream, wine, and mindless TV. I opened the freezer and a bag of peas fell out spilling all over the floor, rolling under the fridge, under the cupboards and all the way to the dining area.

"NO!" I cried out loud to the empty house.

I grabbed the ice cream, a glass and a bottle of wine, stepped over the spilt peas to get a spoon and headed to the lounge room to escape my own mind for a while.

It was the day I had lost my job. I hated my job, but I still needed it. I had been working in call centre for a bank. A large open plan room with cubicles and no set desk. We'd hot seat in and out, the phones were always ringing, and customers were very rarely happy. It was the worst but I still needed the money. I'd worked hard to buy my own little home, but the mortgage was massive.

Last week my boyfriend had broken up with me. We hadn't been getting along for a while, I was unhappy and had been working up to breaking up with him anyway, but it still hurt.

Apparently, turning up to work late and puffy eyed and maybe occasionally crying at your desk is frowned upon and so here we are... Alone, broke, jobless, and surrounded by crap.

I must have fallen asleep because I woke up with melted ice cream down the front of my shirt and the almost empty container on the floor. The TV was still on and a rerun of a talk show was playing. A family were standing on their front lawn with what looked like all of their belongings in boxes. A distraught looking mother was going through boxes and a kind man was talking to her.

I sat up and turned the sound up. His name was Peter Walsh and he was lovingly helping the woman think about each item in the boxes.

“If the things you own are not helping you create the life you want, why do you have them in your home?” he said to her.

By the end of the episode the family had their garage back (yes, all of those items were from their garage, not the entire house). The woman was telling Peter how she felt the best she had in years and her husband was delighted to be able to park the cars inside once again.

Tears were silently streaming down my face watching the story unfold and I could see myself in her (sans the kids and husband, obviously).

I stood and my back creaked and my neck ached. I looked down at my dirty shirt and empty wine bottle as the credits rolled. At that moment I felt like I'd hit rock bottom.

I threw the rubbish in the bin that was overflowing. Enough is enough! I thought. I tied the rubbish bag and went out into the cold night to put it in the wheelie bin and on a whim, I dragged the bin back to the front door.

I took the roll of garbage bags from the kitchen and went into the craft room with more determination than ever. I sat on the floor and started on a box of craft things that I had bought over the last few months and not even opened yet.

"But it's brand new," the little voice in my head said.

I went to the desk and picked through the papers there and did manage to throw some in a garbage bag, but it looked no different.

It was 2 AM by this stage so after a quick shower I headed to bed.

I got up late the next day and ate breakfast in silence, feeling lost and removed.

I saw the partly filled garbage bag slumped against the front door and the night before flooded back to me.

Looking in that room of mess caused my chest to tighten once again. Every surface was covered in stuff. Not dirty as such but things were everywhere. It might have been my craft room but there was certainly no room to do any crafting.

I picked up the box of new items that I had looked at last night and took them out to my front yard. I went back and got another. I put 90's playlist on and turned it up. The neighbours were at work anyway. Alanis Morissette and Garbage pumped through my soul as I studiously kept taking piles of stuff outside.

The room was finally empty and so was my stomach but, after a quick bite to eat, I vacuumed and finally found some semblance of peace at the sight of that empty room. Like a blank canvas, it was ready for me to carefully fill the empty shelves of the bookcases and desk.

Upon returning outside a woman was standing at my gate with a baby in a pram.

"Hi," I said.

"Are you having a garage sale?" she asked.

"Um, no. Just cleaning up." I replied.

"Are you thinking about getting rid of any of your books? I'll take them if you are." She was looking at a large pile of chick lit that I had accumulated, read and put in the bookcase.

"Sure. That'd be fine," I said, not entirely comfortable but knowing deep down I was never going to read those books again.

"How much?" She asked excitedly.

"I don't know."

"I'll give you ten dollars for that pile?" she said pulling out her purse.

"Sure." I began picking them up and added, "I don't have a bag though."

"That's cool, I'll put them under the pram." She said stowing them away.

As she walked off down the street, I pulled out my phone and posted that I was having a garage sale that weekend.

I'm not going to say it was easy. It really wasn't. There were tears and times where I almost cancelled but having that deadline looming of a few days I pushed through and 90% of the things I had carried outside remained on the lawn for the garage sale on Saturday morning.

I didn't make a lot of money, a couple of hundred dollars but when I walked back inside afterwards and saw that room it sparked something inside of me. Not happiness in the normal sense of the word but a kind of deep joy and peace. I felt a freedom from the stuff.

Over the next few weeks, I went on to declutter my entire house. Then I realised my house that I had always felt was small was actually quite empty and much too big for one person.

Over the next year, I worked part-time and slowly did some small renovations. I sold that house and made enough money to buy something smaller in a town close to the beach with a much more manageable mortgage.

Taking that first step when I thought my world had collapsed was the best thing I ever did.