Happy New Year! And welcome to a new year and a new start.
Perhaps.
On the morning of January 1st, I had an illuminating conversation with a friend online. It went something like this:
Me: Do you have any new year’s resolutions for 2025?
Friend: No. I didn’t even bother with resolutions this year.
Me: Good plan. Yeah, what’s the point? If we make ‘em, we’ll probably forget all about ‘em by February 1st, and then feel like crap when New Year’s Eve rolls around again. Then we start thinking about all the stuff we blew off this year and we feel even worse. Nope. New year’s resolutions suck!
Um … but, that said, (I murmured sheepishly)…
I do have one: I decided it’s ‘way past time I started decluttering.
Friend: That’s a good one, Bev. Decluttering feels good.
Me: Does it? Does it really though? I’m rather fond of my clutter. It’s comfortable, you know? And familiar. Like being surrounded by old friends. It’s a reminder of all the people I’ve been, and all the people I’ve known. So many of them are gone now.
I have closets full of skinny clothes that haven’t fit me since 1984, symbols of hope unquenched. I have furniture that belonged to my parents, grandparents, great-grandparents, great-greats and any number of aunts, uncles and former friends, and I can’t toss it all because, hey, they’re heirlooms and I’m a sucker for sentiment.
I have fifty-thousand tabs open on my browser that I might need, “someday.”
There’s a cupboard crammed full of film cameras no one will ever use again.
There are dog toys and bones that should have been stuffed in the circular file as soon as the dog eviscerated them, and that dog’s been dead since 2001. I’ve had four canine companions since, and they’ve all worked their magic on these pitiful scraps of fabric that no longer have any resemblance to the cute stuffies they once were.
I have a drawer full of mismatched socks, keys to an apartment I haven’t lived in for forty years and more keys for at least three vehicles long since crushed and recycled into decorative fencing, tin cans or those clever little kitchen gadgets that no one has ever figured out what they’re meant to do.
Why, in the name of all the gods, do I keep this stuff? Something must be done!
Yeah, decluttering is definitely my number one resolution this year. Again.
Friend: Good for you! Go for it. Decluttering’s always been an ongoing chore for me — I declutter and then the clutter grows back. Probably caused by the same trolls who steal those socks and keys.
Me: I know, right? The damn stuff breeds in the dark. No sooner have you turned out the lights, then it finds other bits of clutter to develop serious personal relationships with, and creates more clutter and more stuff.
You know, I’d be willing to bet that that’s where dust-bunnies come from. They’re newborn clutter, tiny baby clutter-bugs, not yet capable of coming together, but they’re there, lurking in closets and under the bed. Evil little suckers, just waiting for a chance to coalesce into more junk we have to deal with.
I’ve heard them scampering around in the walls, having tiny little clutter orgies. They wake me up at night. And I swear, they chew on the wiring, just to tick me off.
Or maybe it’s mice.
Friend: Decluttering is one of my goals for this year, too. I don’t make resolutions. They never work because there’s no real thought behind them. Instead I make actionable goals, then break them down into projects, and then action steps and tasks.
And I do this on a quarterly basis.
Me: I hate you!
Friend: LOL!
Me: I’ve tried putting out mothballs and poison, but the clutter keeps accumulating. It’s relentless. I’m turning into a hoarder. Oh My doG! I’m turning into my mother!
Friend: If my New Year’s resolution fails, AGAIN (and here I heaved a huge sigh), my next task will be to hire a clutter exorcist. That should fix the little suckers!
Me: It's my own fault, you know. Recently, I acquired a roommate. But of course, roommates bring their own clutter. It never ends. And I bet their clutter breeds in the dark too. God forbid my clutter and their clutter ever interbreed.
Oh, man! That’d make me a clutter-pimp! Hybrid clutter is the WORST. I couldn’t live with myself!
Friend: You could start a 12-step program for clutter pimps!
Me: Oh no, not another project. PLEASE!
I’m so ashamed.
Bev Hanna is a writer and published author. A recovering portrait artist, she now teaches senior writers how to craft compelling stories and memoirs through workshops and online courses. Learn more at ScribblersGuild.com.
