When I was a child and teenager, all Romanians hoarded everything they could find: plastic bags, bottles, jars, pieces of string or wire… They kept everything. They reused old clothes or sheets, patched them, made blouses out of worn dresses, or, as a last resort, kitchen rags. All floors were covered with carpets or mats woven from old clothes. A broken mug was carefully glued together and continued to be used. Those who had thick Pașcani curtains were looked at with envy, those precious curtains were washed by hand in the bathtub, and they were heavy, carefully ironed and artistically mended if they were unlucky enough to break. They had doilies in the show cases, on which stood the blue glass fish with yellow iridescence or the fisherman with the funny hat.
They had a reason back then to keep every little thing: you couldn’t buy anything. All liquids were bought in glass containers, if you wanted a bottle of milk you had to bring another bottle to swap. If you didn’t have a bag you couldn’t buy anything, they didn’t put your apples in a bag, like they do now. If you didn’t have a bag, you put the apples in your pockets. Clothes, shoes, carpets, furniture, appliances were hard to come by, as was food. You sacredly kept the stove you received as a wedding gift, to which the entire extended family contributed, and in the oven of that stove you baked the cookies you served to your colleagues at the retirement party.
Such were the times back then. Now there is abundance, if you buy a banana, an orange and a potato they package them separately and put all those packages in a big bag with the supermarket logo. You can find clothes and shoes anywhere, liquids are in plastic or cardboard packaging, and “household appliances” means much more than stove and refrigerator.
But in the house of a Romanian you can still find the bag with bags, jars, glass or plastic bottles, containers in which they had fish, meat or ice cream. A piece of wire or some mismatched screws. Some chipped glasses left over from mom. Some dresses that no longer fit us or a chair with a broken leg. “Maybe we need it again sometime”. And because now it is abundance and you can buy everything you want, these objects are also abundant in our homes.
Clutter
Clutter does not have a correspondent in Romanian. In English “clutter” is short and concise. In Romanian it means disorder, mess, surplus of things piled up without purpose, something that takes up space unnecessarily. A definition as long and bushy as the term it explains.
When I was 30 years old I started life from scratch. But not in the sense that I had nothing left, but on the contrary, I inherited my mother’s and grandmother’s things, which, together with my things, formed what was called my “household”. I was brought up in the mentality of “bag with bags” and “maybe we need it again someday”, so it never crossed my mind to throw something away. I kept walking them around, trying to organize and store them somehow. I have a big house, so I built shelves, bought boxes and bags, filled the attic, built another shed, the closets were all full, the space under the bed as well. The kitchen drawers, the pantry, the closet, the hallways… all full.
I don’t know exactly when I told myself that maybe I should throw some of that things away. Maybe when I noticed that the doors of the dresser no longer closed. Or when I couldn’t find a place to put the clothes I was buying. Or when I realized that every time I went to the bathroom I had to go around a useless table in the hall. I do not know.
Declutter
If clutter is a noun and means disorder and unnecessary things that take up your space, declutter is a verb that urges the action of getting rid of that disorder, of freeing your space from clutter. And that’s what I did. Slow and painfully. I remember one day I filled 10 large boxes with things from the kitchen (plates, cups, glasses, pots, pans, small and large utensils). After I took those boxes out of the kitchen, you couldn’t see where those things had come from, no cupboard, no drawer had been emptied. I sorted through a mountain of things collected in 2 human lives. I cleared my house a little bit, so I could breathe. That’s how I felt, that I could breathe better.
Then I discovered Marie Kondo and Dominique Loreau. From their books I understood the connection between order in the house and peace in the soul. I applied their advice and it was like therapy. With each piece of the house cleared of surplus things, I purged myself of surplus emotions. With every closet put in order, MY thoughts were put in order. With each thing finding its place, I was finding my purpose and meaning. With each drawer arranged according to the Konmari method, I felt immense satisfaction because there were only things that made me happy, useful things and beautiful things.
“Happiness is a place between too little and too much” – Finnish proverb
A few years ago I worked 2 summers at the seaside as a hotel receptionist. I shared a tiny room with 2 other girls. My things were in a small trolley and on a bedside table. I lived for 3 months with a few changes of clothes (a few items of underwear, 3 white shirts, a dress, a pair of jeans, a pair of shorts, a skirt and a bathing suit), an epilator, a lipstick, a deodorant, a mug and a multi-purpose knife. That’s when I realized how little I need. I had become creative in using the few things I had and I lacked for nothing.
When I returned home I no longer found myself between so many things. I had the impression that they possessed me, not me them. After a few days I started crying and told my husband I felt like I was suffocating. Although I had thrown away many things, I still had too much. So I did another triage. A few more huge bags of clothes, towels, tablecloths, carpets, curtains ended up in the trash or in the possession of other people who needed them.
I discovered groups to donate clothes, furniture and other things. I changed my furniture in the kitchen, bedroom and office, I organized my storage spaces better.
“Less stuff means less to clean, less to organize, less to store, less mess”
“You don’t need more space, you need less stuff,” says Joshua Becker, a minimalism guru. I have tried for several years to organize stuff in the house. After a lot of effort, time and nerves spent, I managed to arrange them as much as possible. But it didn’t last long and things were just as scattered as they were at first.
Then I realized that I was not approaching the problem properly. The Konmari method says that we should organize the house by categories, not by rooms. To remove all objects in a category from all the rooms in which they are stored. And to start with the clothes.
I pulled out my clothes that were scattered in the closets. I put them on a double bed, and after it was full, the clothes spilled over. I had no idea I had so many clothes. Some of them I hadn’t seen in years. Others were too big, I had lost a lot of weight lately. Some I didn’t like anymore. I divided them into 3 categories: clothes that I’m sure to keep, clothes that I throw away or donate, and clothes that I think about a little more (I also donated them after a few days). I did the same with my husband’s clothes (I needed clarification work for that 😊), the items in the kitchen, also by category, books, papers, then I went out into the yard.
“Clutter isn’t just physical things, it’s old ideas, toxic relationships and bad habits”
This process took me years. Because it’s not the physical work involved in sorting and cleaning that’s hard, but the mental effort to let go. When you don’t value yourself, you value your things, you identify with them. You know what they say about men buying big, powerful cars 😊.
When you think your stuff is more valuable than the time you spend maintaining it, you have a problem. When you spend more money on buying things and ways to store them in your home than on your health and well-being, you should review this attitude. When you think you need 3 blenders, a bread maker, a food thermometer, a humidifier, and a top-of-the-line oven to make a loaf of bread, you’re not giving yourself enough credit and trusting yourself that you can do what others do with a plastic bowl and a pan.
When you want to show off your house, throw parties every weekend, and work your ass off before and after, you’re desperate to be loved and you’ll do anything for it. When you’d rather stay indoors and clean the windows than go out with your friends, you think you don’t deserve to be loved unless you DO something.
“Your home is living space, not storage space”
I’m still working on how to resonate with my home. I’m happy every time I manage to get rid of something useless. I thank it for serving me, for being part of my space, then I throw it away or give it away. I think it’s treated with more dignity that way, rather than gathering dust in the attic or in the bottom of a drawer. I will probably struggle my whole life with my inherited habit of clinging to things. But I know it’s an ongoing process and each stage brings me closer to my essence.
I spend less and less time taking care of things around the house and more time on me. I have cleared the space of unnecessary furniture and carpets, so the robot vacuum cleaner does a great job among the few things left, and the floor is always clean with minimal effort. I don’t have useless cushions that fill with dust, but only as many as are needed to sit comfortably on the sofa. I have the exact number of quilts, blankets, pillows, towels, tablecloths, tea towels to be enough, but not too many. I don’t have bushy curtains, I just have small curtains that are easy to remove and machine wash.
And my husband is on the same path as me, to get rid of the surplus of stuff. With men it is more difficult, they are providers in their deep essence, so it is easier for them to bring things, not to let them go. The woman turns the house built by the man into “home”, for them it is easier to get rid of the things that threaten the comfort of the nest.
I think the internal change for him happened when our nutcracker broke. The next day he bought not one, but 3 nutcrackers. “Maybe we need them someday”. He came home victorious with them, and instead of praising him, I made a monstrous scandal. I had just finished a round of decluttering in the kitchen and was very happy with the result. Everything was in perfect order, every little thing had its place, as I wrote in this article. Only the nutcracker’s place was empty. And he bought 3 pieces. My order was broken. And my old traumas, which I was trying so hard to heal, were triggered.
“Reminder: You have everything you need”
The house is an extension of us. You can tell what a man is like just by looking at his house. Starting with the gate, or the doormat, if he lives in an apartment.
Clutter absorbs our life energy, energy we need to grow and thrive. If your house is messy and full of unnecessary things, you cannot enjoy life. You don’t control anything. You’re like a chicken on a garbage heap.
I now no longer waste precious time organizing things. Because I only have a few things left, which I no longer need to organize. Each thing has its well-established space, I can find a scrunchy or a safety pin even in the dark. Once, twice a year, I take every space and throw away the extra stuff. I resist the temptation to buy things I don’t need or that would unnecessarily burden my space and time. I enjoy my free time, which I no longer burden with chores around the house, and the money saved.
My space is mine, not my stuff’s. It cleans easily and keeps for a long time. And I have everything I need.
