My husband went out of town last week for work, and as so many do when their spouse leaves town, I planned a dozen projects that I was going to work like a dog to a accomplish before he got home.
Now, I do this every time he goes out of town, and I rarely get half of the things on my list accomplished, so at the start of the week I mellowed my ambitions and only give myself two projects to accomplish over the four days: build a bedframe and clean our home office.
Just two projects, and on paper they don’t sound that unmanageable. But let me tell you, cleaning our home office alone was a massive undertaking!
Somehow at our house, the office seems to become the catch-all storage place for many things.
Apart from all office supplies and of course filing items for, well, our life! – our home office room also becomes the place for electronic gadget storage, forms of media (books, dictionaries, old magazines we have read and loves, CDs, the few DVDs we have in our home despite not having a player to view them with, etc); art and décor storage; party supplies like future greeting cards and wrapping paper; and memorabilia in the form of photos, albums, journals, old birthday/holiday cards, cherished toys and gadgets from my husband and I, first blankets and haircuts for my kids, baby blessing clothes, and of course, a large storage of hand colored or painted pictures my kids have made me over the years.
And if all of that jumble weren’t enough to get out of control over the course of several shuffles and moves, the home office almost always doubles as my sewing room, which … can get pretty messy.
Needless to say, this was a task that not only look hours of work every day spanning those four days, but it took a lot of emotional strength to get past the overwhelm and see progress.
Day One was sewing space focused, and fairly straightforward. But when I started looking at all the memorabilia-type stuff on Day Two, I needed a break.
I found myself listening to “declutter talks” and “organizational hacks” on the YouTube while downing a mid-afternoon snack with my kids. Nothing helps light a fire under you to throw things away than a room full of organization experts (who knew that was a profession) cheering you on!
Long, emotional process told short: I accomplished my goal and successfully cleared, cleaned, reorganized the entire office space in our home before my husband got home from his work trip.
Mission accomplished.
(Though I should add the other project item on my list did not get finished, but – hey – we’re celebrating our wins over here.)
What I Learned
One of the consistent themes I have both read about and listed to from books and talks on organizing (decluttering, purging – whatever you choose to call it), is to stop holding on to things that maybe you once used but no longer do, or maybe you have yet to use the item in your home but are hopeful to someday put it to use.
I so appreciate the courage and motivation I got just from watching a few videos (if you’re curious, I’ll leave links to a few of the videos I found helpful), and I feel very accomplished and unashamed of what I allowed myself to get rid of in my own mini cleaning purge. However, I have found myself really reflecting on past moments of my life – our life, mine and my husbands’ – when holding on to certain items, even when it didn’t really make sense, was like a physical hold onto dreams.
Looking Back
A lifetime ago (says the woman who just turned 30), my husband and I lived a very different life than we do even today. We owned horses and worked on farms and ranches, and ultimately that is the life we again want for ourselves, the life we actively seek for our family.
Though we have made a lot of moves in our married life together, definitely the most pivotal move was when my husband went back to school.
We were both university graduates who had moved on and were working on farms/ranches across a few different states. We owned an old flatbed Ford, a pack of border collies, horse trailer, a pen of horses, all the tack, and all the personal clothing gear that comes with working outside in all weather conditions. For those readers who work outside daily, you know your wardrobe of coats and boots alone is a lot when you actually sort it all out.
We went from living on a ranch in the desert, riding horseback 5-6 days a week to living in a small trailer in the middle of town just one week later. There was, quite literally, less than 15 feet between our house and the ones on either side of us.
It was a culture shock, in more ways than one.
We sold our horses, our trailer, and all but one dog, but chose to hold on to our pickup, saddles, and tack.
I remember pulling into work one day, driving that old Ford. It always took some maneuvering to fit that thing into a tight downtown parking space, especially because that truck couldn’t turn worth a darn. After finally parking, I gathered my things and started walking into the building where I worked on the second floor. I met my supervisor in the parking lot, stepping out of his … well, I can’t even pretend to know cars well enough to say what he was driving, only that it was small and certainly easy to drive downtown. And likely only required slipping the car into reverse once in order to back in straight to the tight parking spot.
He asked me, rather abruptly and upfront, why I drove a pickup with a flatbed. Why did I need a big pickup like that and what was the use of a flatbed?
I’ll never know if his question was sincere curiosity or mocking insult (it was always hard to tell), but I remember seeming surprised.
The pickup was the obvious vehicle choice in my life before. It towed our gooseneck trailer and transported dirty, dusty dogs around. And the flatbed helped gather small bales from the field so we had hay to feed to our horses. Plus… it was a good looking truck. Old and slow to turn, but sharp looking.
As for the saddles and tack, they more or less become décor items in our home. Bits hung off the wall. Hats hung on pegs over our bed. I built a simple saddle stand so we could store our saddles, spurs, pads, and other tac, which we kept in our home office space in that house (I’m telling you, our home office just always becomes the catch-all).
During COVID Lockdown, I worked from home using a flimsy card table for a desk as I sat next to that stand of saddles and tack. Horse hair, sweat, and dirt still lingering in the cinches and pads. The smell of horse slowly fading from the leather as time went on.
Our lone border collie would often come in and sit on the rug next to my husband’s desk, helping remind the student of the life we were working toward. Working towards a life of ownership, someday.
For years, our daily attire was slacks, blouses, ties, and dress shoes. The worn out boots never got used, nor did most of our coats and other outside working gear.
So many times we asked ourselves if we should just get rid of it all to create more space.
With the birth of our oldest that question came more frequent. We now had baby clothes to store, a crib, and I so longingly hoped for a rocking chair or maybe a baby swing to help in those needed moments of care. But we never got a rocker or a swing. And we lived all those years with her bed next to our bed as we all shared one room.
All the while those saddles and tack stand held their own place in the room next door.
Hopes and Dreams
Reflecting on those years of school after listening to declutter talks, I’m sure we could have sold our saddles and all of our tack. We could have used the money – that’s for sure! And it would have given us so much more room in the limited space we had.
We could have sold our things, held on to photos and memories for the time being, and then bought new gear when we returned to that life. And maybe that would have been helpful or even liberating for us to live in the moment.
But the thing is, we didn’t want to live in the moment. Not exactly.
I am believer that we should enjoy every day, no matter our circumstance, and that is true! And in many ways, I think we tried our best to enjoy life during those challenging school years of living in town.
Truthfully, though, the life we were living then was challenging to us. It was confining. Sure, there were treasured moments – after all, we welcomed our daughter into the world during that time, saw her first steps and heard her first words – but living so close to our neighbors where we could hear arguments and hear the car door open every time someone left or came back home – that was claustrophobic dwelling for us. And living intown where people have no understanding, or appreciation, of agriculture was hard.
Those saddles – those physical saddles that held their place in the center of our home – they were a physical reminder of the dream we were chasing.
All the stuff that we chose to keep – yes, it takes up space in our home, and we’ve had to move the heavy things from one house to the next more than once – but those items hold hope. They carry dreams along with dust and faded horse scent.
Now I realize that many professional organizers promote pictures or brief written memories – paper-thin items that don’t take up much space – over holding on to the bulky items, and their entire purpose is to help reduce the clutter, and the overwhelm that often comes with that clutter. And for us, that might very well have been enough to keep us holding on. Maybe.
Looking back, though, I’m grateful even now that we held on to those hopes and dreams items. I’m grateful that we’re still holding on to them now. Because sometimes I feel like losing the physical things make the dreams harder to hold on to too.
I’m still feeling a bit of that declutter-high, and I have big plans for my downstairs closet later this week. But still for now, the saddles are there to stay. ♥
Here are a few of the videos that came up toward the top of my feed, and I found helpful – empowering, even, as I tackled the clutter in my home office this last week. If you are feeling in the mood to clean up your life and home, you might also find these helpful. Just remember, some things are worth hanging on to.
These videos from The Good Stuff with Mary Berg “How to Declutter & Organize Keepsakes” and “Top 5 reasons Why We Hang to Stuff” , as well as this video from the Minimal Mom, “what if you handled SENTIMENTAL items THIS WAY??”
