the emotional perils of unfucking my habitat

[cpolk]

i watched a video today about clutter threshold, which is the amount of stuff you can have before you can't keep it organized.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S2opr5i0QVk
 

i hadn't thought about it that way before. also a big vibe where she was talking about how she was taught to have everything she needed for every contingency, and it made me think about how my grandparents, who absolutely were hoarders, really really put value on saving things, because you might need it later

 

on top of that, they were also collectors, like me

 

 

so i grew up with a literal wall of bookshelves with every shelf absolutely crammed with books. all kinds of books! from encyclopaedias to a three volume oxford english dictionary to pulp paperbacks. there were hundreds of magazines - national geographic, ebony, jet, canadian living, and Man, Myth, and Magic. there were boxes and boxes of comic books that cost twelve cents. I read constantly. I would wake up and my book would be in my hand before I got out of bed. I fell asleep and lost my page every night. 

 

every single closet in that house was crammed full of clothes, dating from as far back as the 30s. (hell, i went back there after being gone for ten years and gramma said, "I still have that jacket of yours." and she had my old leather jacket, with the studs and the meticulously painted fantasy art and the sleeve full of occult symbols and there was still a fucking gig ticket in the mickey pocket!) 

 

there were teacups, souvenir spoons, novelty salt and pepper shakers that were all painted and glazed ceramic. books and books of stamps and coins. thousands of photographs, from really old posed studio photographs to kodak brownie shots to polaroids - and I would regard them as objects of value. objects that mattered. even though there were so many of them.

 

it's probably no surprise to anyone that I adore museums, lol

 

but I remember how it felt to lift that old jacket out of the bag it had been stored in so carefully. how i was flooded with feelings as I remembered. buying it. wearing it everywhere. carefully unpicking the lining to cover the yoke in studs and then sewing it back in. how people would know it was me from just a glimpse of it--how it was like wearing my self and my armor at the same time...how powerful it was.

 

how much my gramma loved me, to know that she should preserve it, that it was a treasure.

 

and this is really hard to release. I had a realization a few months ago that I wasn't getting rid of things that i didn't need any more and didn't even like any more because I felt like I had to find all my inanimate objects a safe future. and i was like okay screw that! and I yeeted a whole bunch of stuff!

 

and then I got to my clothes and I just. got in my feelings about it!

 

I couldn't do it! I would pick something up and it was like...throwing away a piece of my expression? my identity? and what if I am not ready to get rid of rose lace fishnet tights? how could I possibly devalue what they said about me?

hello i am chelsea i am seventeen neurotic beliefs in a trenchcoat

how do you do?