Minimalist Mondays: Decluttering Sentimental Stuff

My one-hour uncluttering sessions has shown me what a pack rat I am, thanks to genetics. My mom is a hoarder, too. If our tiny house were a cardboard box, it will be bulging on the sides, ready to break any minute. I didn't want to live like that.

Judging from the stuff I own, I'm closer to living like my mom. I just don't notice it because we have more space. It's hard to let go of stuff you don't need especially if you've spent a lot of money for them. Getting rid of sentimental stuff such as old letters and knickknacks is next to impossible.

Then I asked myself, why do we keep old letters or sentimental stuff? Based on my research, two main reasons emerge.

Sentimental stuff helps us remember. Our memories are faulty and at most, embellished. So we keep sentimental stuff to aid us in remembering important events in our lives. There is scientific basis on why nostalgia makes us happy. In our memories, we seem larger than life. We remember ourselves as cooler or braver than we actually were at that exact moment so we hold on to those memories.

Sentimental stuff reminds us that our lives have meaning. When we read old letters from people telling us how much we have touched their lives, we are persuaded that our lives are valuable. The gifts we've received tells us that at one time, we were special to someone. Sentimental stuff is a reminder that our lives matter.

While the occasional reminiscing sessions are good for us, there are dangers in overindulging in nostalgia.For one, we could get so caught up in our memories that we fail to live in the present. Past successes can stifle us with fear that we might never duplicate our awesomeness. Thinking too much about the past can also prevent us from embracing new experiences or forming new relationships.

That is why it is essential for us to manage our sentimental clutter. We can keep SOME sentimental stuff, but not ALL of them. But how do we decide which ones to keep and which ones to ditch?

Here are a few rules that I've come up from uncluttering my old sentimental stuff:

1. Old letters

Keep Pile:
a. Letters from my immediate family and extended family I am fond of. - I am at that point in my life when I've realized that you're stuck with your family whether or not you want to. You might have great friends, but in the end, when the going gets tough, it's really your family you go back to. That's why I kept each letter from my immediate family.
b. Letters from old friends that I am still in touch with.
c. Letters from old friends that struck a chord or reminded me of who I was before.

Destroy Pile:
a. Letters from friends turned enemies (echoes of evil laughter in the background) It's so freeing to finally destroy these. I've read them once and vowed that I will only choose friends that have a positive influence in my life.
b. Random notes from people I barely remember
c. Love letters from past loves. Mind you, some of them were very eloquent, but I figured, what's the use of keeping them? I already decided to love one person as my husband, so what's the use of reliving these moments? Is it to brag that you were attractive once upon a time? I don't have any use for them anymore, so ditch them I did. (After my husband read some of them and taunted me goodnaturedly about them.)


2. Sentimental Knickknacks:

I decided to designated a certain box for my sentimental knickknacks. I am only keeping a shoebox for my "single" days, so I have to be selective with what I am keeping. Anything that does not fit that shoebox will have to go.

To make letting go easier, I've decided to keep a snapshot of the things I am getting rid of to remember them by. I am planning to keep a scrapbook page and journaling about them to preserve the good memories.


3. Journals:


This is by far the hardest to part with because when I was in college, I was insane enough to burn all my journals that I have kept since my high school freshman year. All 15 notebooks.I don't want to explain why I did this, but I've regretted doing this. I have very few memories of high school and I would have loved to know what I thought then and how far I've gone. 

Since I've regretted burning my journals, I am hesitant to part with the ones I have now. After leafing  through them, I am loathe that someone else will read them. They are all the products of an indecisive, depressed, and confused person, someone I once was, but am not anymore. So what do I do with them?

There's this advice from Unclutterer.com that talks about old journals:

• If you wrote them for therapeutic reasons, as a way to work through problems in your life, then go ahead and burn them.
• If you wrote them as messages to your future self, then keep them.
• If you wrote them as a record that you were alive in that moment, then keep them.
• If you wrote them to vent your frustrations, then burn them.

 It sounds like good advice, but I don't want to do this in haste. As of now, I am veering towards the following:

Keep Pile:

1. Good memories of important events in my life
2. Bad memories that taught me something about life- I think I'm going to put my present perspective. Thinking of doing a scrapbook of this, but I'm not sure yet.

Destroy Pile:
1. Negative memories that still make me feel bad when I read it. These memories hold me back and
2.  Embarrassing thoughts and experiences that I have written down that I don't want anyone to know.

But I'm still undecided because there's something about censoring my memories that still makes me uncomfortable, perhaps because of my journalism training. I don't want a glossed-over past, but I don't want to be dragged down by negativity either.  (Update: I chose one of the journals about an episode in my life that still causes me pain. I tore each page one by one over a cup of coffee. How liberating it was. So there's some good advice about journals. I'm keeping my journal documenting my experiences in Japan for my daughters.)

How about you? Do you keep sentimental clutter? What do you do to manage them?