Before I Continue on with the Decluttering Challenge …

About two weeks ago, I had a thought about decluttering that’s been gnawing at me ever since.  What do I do when the clutter is gone? I’m sure that sounds like a strange question but I have never lived in a clean uncluttered house before and I have no idea what that’s like.  Will I know what to do?  Will I be bored?  Should I continue on with the risk of being bored when I finish?

What started me thinking about all this was one of those motivational posters.  It’s the one that says, “If you can imagine it (or dream it), you can achieve it.”  At first I applied this to money.  I realized that I didn’t have a clue what it was like not living paycheck to paycheck.  Imagining a savings account with more than $100 in it was a stretch.  It’s not easy imagining something that you’ve never experienced before.

Fully aware that I need to change my mindset about money, I’m realizing that I need to do the same regarding the hoard in my house so I can continue.  I need to find a way to imagine the things that I will be able to accomplish when I don’t have to spend all my time taking care of the things that are holding me hostage.

I have a really weird fear of being bored.  It’s very hard for me to sit around doing things like reading.  I didn’t watch TV for years because I couldn’t stand sitting there not doing anything.  Even now, I hate watching TV shows on things like Netflix and Hulu because I need the commercial time to get up and do things.  But if there’s no decluttering that needs to be done, what will I do when I get up?  Will I get extremely lazy?  Will I resort back to hoarding?

About 9 or 10 years ago, we were trying to sell our house.  The realtor told us to get everything out so we filled a huge storage unit.  The summer that the house was cleared out was one of the best that I’ve ever had in my entire life.  I was only working part time so I got to spend a lot of time with my kids.  We did awesome fun things the whole summer.  We checked out every park we could find.  We went to the library.  We grilled out more than we cooked inside.  We went to a bunch of fairs like GermanFest and IrishFest.  We went to soccer games and played hours and hours of video games together.  It was so great until we had to bring the stuff back home.

It will be different this time.

The kids are older now and some are married and moved out.  The ones at home don’t like going to the parks like I always have.  They do like traveling though and finding new places so maybe that’s what I can focus on – taking weekend trips.  It will be at least a year before I can really ramp up these plans but I’m glad I wrote this out.  I think I have found my motivation.  I just needed something to look forward to besides sitting around with that awful feeling of boredom.

Now I can get started on Day 6 of the 21 Day Decluttering Challenge!  I don’t feel quite as stressed about being bored once I finish as I did before.  I feel like life might still be exciting even when the house isn’t overrun with stuff!