The next round......

I've begun the next round of de-cluttering and it's painful!

The theory of clearance being good for the soul is well, arguable but positive, and OK I guess, but I like the idea of clearance enabling the enlivened soul being free to collect more stuff, once the bereaved soul has got over the loss of the earlier clutter.  Are you still with me...,good!

However, whatever the reason and philosophy, clearing out papers etc. is painful and to be regretted and, most arguably, only done because you've run-out of space, which is something you simply cannot by anything other than positive about; it's a fact of life, your life, and something that has to be dealt with in whatever way open to you, the bereaved soul?

I've gone through my collection of family letters, not all of course but quite a few, thankfully, which I was able to save.  I've thrown some away, discovered a few which link up with our latest family  research that my son is helping with; this is great for connection to the particular family concerned, and weakened by death and loss, a tragedy happening all the time with extended family links, but still very sad. And I still have a whole folder of letters I'm hoping will help us connect with other kith and kin!

Of dairies, there are very many and some will hold relevant notes of family lives and incidents and happenings, while mostly the entries will be of everyday, mundane, activities but, I do believe, it is these simple activities carried out as a regular routine, which hold the key to our lives; the daily minutiae which is so utterly forgettable and trivial, yet so good to remember and recall. They are uniquely important to each and every one of us and we lose them at our peril.

So the diaries stay and I'm simply longing to go through them yet somehow they keep missing out on their turn to be investigated and researched; I have masses of them!!

Then books.  Of these also there are many, less than before, that is before we first moved from our house in another village, to where we are now.  I absolutely hate parting with books for they are my friends and many of them have been with me for simply ages.....ah that's the rub,  longevity of ownership, which is how they are friends.  So I will list the books which can be parted with, to remember them and replace if I might one day.  We've not stopped buying books since coming here and I, in particular, seem to have acquired rather a great deal of books.  Thankfully, many of them are modern novels which can easily be parted with and replaced, if necessary, which won't happen; mostly, they can be forgotten and not replaced and I will take them down to our Oxfam Bookshop for them to sell.

I like text, historical or factual books, all for particular and general study purposes, and I keep just a few novels because they are very dear to me.

Then of course, there are papers and detail needed to be retained, for further logging and writing about
which cannot be lost, yet if I'm to keep them, other things must go, for our space is finite, here at least, and that must be the over-riding consideration.

As I said earlier, de-cluttering is a painful subject which must be taken on, and there is no other way forward....bother, or buther as Pooh would say!

It's the letting go, as I know from earlier days, for often, once a thing has gone it can be forgotten fairly easily, which is happily hopeful for all of us would-be de-clutterers, wouldn't you say?

Ah well, life goes on, somehow!

Toodle oo

Daisy