Happy Hoarder: Happy Hoarder Day # 12 Invisible Clutter Feb. 26, 2015

Happy Hoarder Day # 12 Invisible Clutter Feb. 26, 2015
A journey into cleaning up a big pile of..... hoard
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Invisible Clutter

by Janet S. Tiger

tigerteam1@gmail.com

I was going to leave this page blank to make my point, then realized if I didn't explain what invisible clutter was, some people might not understand.

All week, actually, for 11 days, I have been focusing on the different pieces of visible clutter I have been able to let go. Ripped, stained clothing, old broken machines, mildewed papers.....empty spice jars. Not an easy task - I have struggled every day. But today is the worst. I came to a horrifying realization - if I keep up at this rate, I will have to live forever to get rid of the excess stuff I have now!

And then it came to me, another realization, one that might make the rest a tiny bit easier. Yes, it's possible, just possible, that the worst clutter is.......not visible. Oooh, I can hear some thinking....'if you can't see it, how would anyone know it's still there?' The answer is, unfortunately, now very obvious to me.

Only I can know.

For the clutter that is at the root of all the rest is......inside of my head..... in my heart....in my very soul. All the excuses I make, the weird reasons for saving, the exceptionally odd rationale I use to hold on to all this....this stuff, it's all....in my head.

And now that I have identified it, it does not make it any easier to rid myself of its encircling tentacles.

My first chore.....to root out the need to look at every single receipt that I have ever owned or seen, or had pushed into some deep pocket. I can actually throw them out....without a glance. The root is in the remembering of the moments when those receipts were first generated. WHY DO I NEED TO REMEMBER? If I never see these again, and never remember their origins, how will that hurt me? Am I afraid of hurting someone else by discarding these completely useless - and mostly faded - pages of numbers? Does knowing that a dozen eggs once cost 45 cents help me in any way?

I touch the wounds in myself, and hope to heal them soon......but how do you throw away....dreams?

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Janet S. Tiger 858-736-6315
JanetSTigerMonologueMania.blogspot.com

www.JanetSTiger.weebly.com

Member Dramatists Guild since 1983

Playwright-in-Residence

Swedenborg Hall 2006-8