Procrastination

Word of advice: don't put off cleaning up the clutter, especially from the past 40 years or so.  The job becomes overwhelming and takes weeks, not days.

Based on my recent experience, I found many, many old papers that simply needed to be either shredded (personal info) or trashed (generic paper).  I had kept things not knowing if I would ever need the information, so when it came time to purge the past, I had hours of recordkeeping to go through and make the shred/toss decision.  I used my personal shredder for a lot of the old paperwork, but when my daughter came to help me with the cleaning process, she told me I could take a lot of the personal papers to a company and have them do the shredding.  It was not expensive and it relieved both of us from hours pushing papers through the shredder.  Other papers, mostly from my 35-year career in public education, are being taken to the dump, which breaks my heart.  There is so much good material in those boxes, but time changes what's done and how it's done in the classroom, so I'm guessing it wouldn't be of value to anyone today.

I also saved many, many items that simply have no value, like empty tins, jars, and containers. When I was growing up, my mother saved empty jars for canning, but I haven't canned since I lived at home and that's been 50 years ago.  I used to bake and fill up the tins with goodies, but living alone negates the need to bake: I just go to the grocery store and buy one package of whatever cookie I'm craving. I also have decades of old photos, bins filled with photos I don't want/don't need.  I separated out some of the photos to send to my children, but I'm not sure they are going to want a huge bin filled with old photos to land on their doorstep.

I wasn't aware that I had become a hoarder, but my daughter made an entire shelf section in the garage into my own mini Costco!  It's one of those trips that is a bit farther away than the local store, so while I'm there, I may as well pick up another batch of paper towels, or Kleenex, or cleaning supplies.  I have enough plastic bags to last me at least a year. I truly wasn't aware that I was constantly buying more of the same item, but once it's on the shelf and I see the magnitude of the over-buying, it makes the point.  My daughter put a back-up list in my phone of things I don't need to buy at Costco.

And, I obviously wasn't on top of checking expiration dates on the things in my pantry and 'fridge. My daughter went through everything and tossed out at least half of what I had on the shelves, many of which were well over 5 years' of expiration.  I never checked the shelves, but seldom used anything from there either as I don't really cook like I used to when I had someone living at home. Now that I'm aware of expiration dates, I'll do a better job of staying on top of those items that either need to be used or tossed.

It is challenging to think about what lies ahead, when I either need to move out of this home and into a smaller space, or have to have help to stay in my own home.  Once I'm gone, there is still far too much stuff that my children will need to handle, and that's not fair to them. My message is to urge all able-bodied elderly persons to start now to declutter and discard. I was lucky to have my daughter come to help me with the process, but once I'm gone, she and her brother will be on their own, and it's a daunting task at best.