Die Hoarder Die!

I may have mentioned before that I’m a hoarder. 

Not the kind who will need to be airlifted out of my living room full of crap, but the covert kind.  The kind whose closets are overflowing with clutter and whose basement contains piles upon boxes upon closets of crap.

Crap that, “I may need someday,” or “That may come back in style”, or “That I’ll fit into again when I lose the weight,” or “That I can re-purpose into something new and cool,” or the most deadly of all:

“That I can sell at a garage sale.”

I’ve lived in my house for over 5 years and have never had a garage sale.  In fact, my garage itself starts playing the Sanford and Son theme song when you open it.

I don’t like all the junk.  The clutter makes me feel stressed out and edgy.

But I keep it anyway.

It’s really ridiculous to have all this useless junk laying around, but my previous “purging” experiences have only confirmed what I already fear.

“I’m going to throw something away and then end up needing it later.”

Just a couple of the things I’m still kicking myself over getting rid of:

1. Entertainment Weekly: Special Friends issue.  A magazine chock full of fun facts, behind the scenes info and actor profiles of one of my favorite shows.  It came to light that I’d tossed this fun magazine the winter that my sister watched every episode of the show over the course of a month or so and was super excited to get her hands on the magazine for extra info.  She still won’t let me live this down.

2. My Miss America banner.  Ok, I know that sounds strange, but in high school I dressed up as Miss America for a youth group Halloween party and our dear neighbor replicated the Miss America banner perfectly.  It was the highlight of my costume that year and would have been perfect to pair with my tiara and a skirt suit for a work-appropriate costume this year.

I know that these things aren’t life or death, but on multiple occasions I’ve wished I’d held onto them and I didn’t.

The kicker?

I have SO MUCH CRAP that I will actually never use.  Dumb stuff that I think I need when I actually lay eyes on it but that in reality I’ll probably never use.

Today I made some progress on one of my most difficult area’s of hoarding: furniture.

I’m a sucker for hand-me-down furniture.  You know, because someday I’m going to have a huge house to fill up.  And I’ll, of course, need a bunch of tacky, used furniture to fill it up?

Really?!

Shouldn’t I think that it would be more fun to bargain hunt for better cast offs that I can re-vamp?  Or save up to buy new stuff?

Better yet, shouldn’t I realize that I’m never moving because the housing market is so bad and so I should just throw it overboard to be able to take a deep breath from the freedom that comes from clean, clutter-free open spaces?

Well, I bit the bullet today and listed 4 big pieces of our old furniture on Craigslist!

Before you ask, no.  No you do not want it.  It’s old and frumpy and you’re better off without it.

I’m just hoping there are some other furniture hoarders browsing Craigslist tonight ;)