Death Cleaning
It's been a month since dad died. And today I finished reading The Gentle Art of Swedish Death Cleaning: How to Free Yourself and Your Family from a Lifetime of Clutter by Margareta Magnusson. Coincidence? No. The timing of it all is what attracted me to the title in the first place, the reason being that I've been on a mission to declutter for quite some time now, even before my dad ever truly passed away. This obsession began when he was still dying. Call it a coping mechanism, a distraction. Plus clutter gives me anxiety and boy, do we have a lot of clutter, and boy, do I have a lot of anxiety. So there is that. In general, I'm good at seeking out distractions (I refreshed my Facebook feed three time since opening this template), so the trouble lies in the fact that I don't get very far in my attempts to declutter whenever I go on these binges. Maybe it's the aforementioned need for eternal distractions. Maybe we just have too much clutter here. Much like with my weight and my ever evasive goal of losing some-I don't like what I see, but I also don't have enough steam in me to make the necessary dent to order to truly make a difference. It's like I want to, but I also don't. Or at least not hard enough. So I turned to Margareta Magnusson for guidance.
This isn't a how-to book. There are no pretty pictures of all your belongings neatly organized like in an IKEA catalogue. On the contrary, Ms. Magnusson gives very little instruction, per se. This is, first and foremost, a book about personal responsibility. Her bottom line seems to be, "it's not the responsibility of others to sort through your crap after you die so declutter as you go along, downsize before it's too late." Sure, she gives pointers here and there: photos and letters are the hardest to get rid of due to our understandable emotional attachment to them, so save those for later and start with clothes, cutlery, furniture, what have you. The goal is to simplify your life while you still can so as not to stick your loved ones with the task. Sounds reasonable. I'm game. I knew I loved all things Swedish.
Luckily, since my mom lives in my house and there is no need for her to downsize, we haven't had to do much death cleaning after dad's passing. The only things we immediately disposed of were medications and supplies simply because they were too painful to still have around. His clothes are still in the closet, his shoes are still by the door. His tools are still in a messy shed, his gadgets are still all over the living room. I don't know if it's healthy, but it is what it is. Mom is not ready even though dad had not been his real self for weeks and weeks before his eventual passing and hadn't worn those pants in months, hadn't used that tablet in weeks. It should be easy enough to get rid of these things now. They are things he hadn't touched in so long, what emotional attachment? Still, we are not ready. But while dad's shirts are still on hangers, I've been inspired to begin to let go on my own level. It's not necessarily that I'm confronted with thoughts of my own mortality (I'm too much of an escapist to fathom the finality of own existence), but between the need for distraction, the anxiety that living among piles of books, magazines, toys, and bills creates within me, and this newfound craving to declutter as if to detox in the name of personal responsibility, I need to do something.
I haven't made very much progress yet. But the good intent is there, that sense of purpose. That's a start, right?