Brain – Wash?

TASK #4: BRAIN–WASH

“A clear conscience is often the sign of a bad memory”. Unknown

I’ve always had this “thing” about clutter. My older sister was a neat freak. I should start out by saying that she was basically my mother. My mom was around, but she worked all the time, and my sister, who was 10 years older than me, ran the household and she ran it like a master sergeant runs a barrack. Meaning: things were put away, tidied up, clean and orderly. And I mean orderly with a capital “O”. She didn’t throw anything but…everything that came into the house was saved, but whatever it was had an assigned place–which she assigned–and woe to the little brother who tried to free-lance. For example, shoes belonging to my brother and I were to be placed on the stairs that led to the attic, where we slept. The shoes were paired-up and set on the left hand side of a stair, and that was that.

So you figure that when I grew up, which I did, eventually–I would either be a neat-monster like her or compulsively slobby. Well, I’m a neat-nik and I’m okay with that, but she did infect me with one bad habit–I save shit.

I’m not a hoarder. A hoarder is someone who saves weird crap, and saves it compulsively. Like the guy with a houseful of newspapers, or jars of grease, or the guy who puts strands of thread in envelopes, and files them by color. That’s not me. I save things that came into my life and I couldn’t bear to pitch. Stuff like report cards, concert tickets, coins, trading cards, a label from a “Lady Of The Lake” butter container that can be folded in a certain way to make it look like the Lady had big boobs, my mom’s high school year book, and a linen napkin that I stole from a Paris cafe.

And I save birthday cards, and stuff my kids made for me, and books. I can’t bear to throw out books.

And then there’s the negative things. The bad report card, the summons I got after I was arrested for shoplifting, a break-up letter from my college girlfriend, an angry note from my mother (because I got arrested for shoplifting).

I decided that I have to clean house. Not to reclaim space in my home, but to reclaim space in my brain, because each ridiculous saved piece of paper is not only a physical item, it is a mental one as well. You don’t just carry things around in boxes, you carry them around in your head.

So I decided to clean house. It wasn’t easy. Not at all. I had some moments of panic. Of weakness. And I almost couldn’t throw the two thirty gallon Hefty bags I filled up into the recycling bin–I almost stopped, but I did it. And you know what?

It’s been a couple of weeks and I don’t miss any of it. Hell, I don’t even remember what a lot of it was…

TASK: Lighten your load. Go into your basement, your attic, your garage, pull out those boxes and old suitcases and laundry bags and pour out your past in front of you. Select five items that MEAN SOMETHING to you, good or bad. And throw the rest of it away.

Photo courtesy of the author.