When Decluttering Is Hindered By Nostalgia

There’s something about October air that takes me on a cleaning and decluttering drive. It’s therapeutic. A satisfying cleaning session helps wipe away the blues. But once I board the cleaning wagon, it’s a duel between middle-class hoarding sensibility and post-COVID minimalism. Unread books and unworn saris shame me every time I open my almirah. To add to the misery, my house help refuses to take old stuff. She offers a sweeping statement – ‘Didi, I don’t have space. Goonj camp laga hai, wahan de do’.

Trying to mop my dilemma away, I decide to follow the Japanese KonMari Method by Marie Kondo – a philosophical approach to cleaning that focuses on keeping only what sparks joy and speaks to the heart. Marie says we should find a designated place for each item and make sure it stays there. But wait. How do you decide if old letters, gifts and books spark joy, drip nostalgia or take you on a sentimental journey?  And with children flying in and out, how do you ensure their stuff stays in one place?

De-Clutter - Let’s dust get it done.

Cleaning may be my October Cardio but I realise a hoarding gene is embedded in our middle-class psyche. So what if I can’t wear heels anymore, I will wear them on my next birthday. If you belong to the middle-class layer of any denomination, how can you throw cosmetics and supplements before their expiry date? If nothing, the multivitamins can be sprayed on plants. The stressful deliberation makes my left brain whisper, don’t discard ‘you will use it one day’ but the right brain cautions - ‘if you haven’t used it in 2 years, you will never use it’. 

Trash is not always tacky. Often times it takes us on a sentimental journey. Like the wedding memorabilia and childhood toys and clothes of our children. But how long will we carry these memories? What value will they hold after we are gone? 

Just when I take tough de-cluttering decisions, the nostalgia freak husband quietly retrieves half of the discarded items and puts them back. Somehow, my cleaning drive takes the wind off his sails. Suddenly he becomes possessive about the old camera from his first boss, broken TT rackets, used Carrom board coins and old board games. Neither logic nor common sense can explain the surge of emotions he feels for his faded t-shirts.

Regardless of weighty decisions, I feel lighter after de-cluttering - as if hoarding unnecessary stuff was pulling me down. And with Diwali looming, there’s festive joy in playing ‘safai safai’. Since it’s all about the mind, I’ve decided to think of de-cluttering as an exercise in deciding what to keep, and not what to give away.

Happiness, they say, relies on letting go. And who knows what flows in fresh empty spaces? Dust do it.

Views expressed by the author are their own.