“This is where I am with it.”

Those words were spoken by someone on a recent episode of the television show Hoarders. He acknowledged it wasn’t right, but also recognized that it IS the way it is, right now. I also heard: “After a while you just stop SEEING it.” That’s fascinating to me.

I spent a number of years in my childhood in a state of disarray and halfway unpacked rooms and I know that had an affect on my ability to SEE clutter. Then as an adult I lived through over a dozen moves, none of which were really what I wanted. Eventually, after two failed marriages, I found myself in a home of my own, and it was very difficult to ever get rid of anything.

If you’ve seen the show Hoarders, you know that the people who behave that way are filling in a gap in their hearts with some type of stuff. I’m sure that’s what I was doing. I also think that once a person becomes a hoarder, they are always a hoarder, even if they stop actually hoarding. It’s kind of like being an alcoholic.

That’s hard for me to admit though, because I’ve definitely been a hoarder in the past. I don’t acquire possessions compulsively anymore. Am I still a hoarder?

For the last year I’ve been working on undoing some of the damage, as I mentioned in my Fiestaware post. I have ONE last big area that’s just a junk room, and so far I’m about halfway through picking it apart. It’s a difficult process, but a good one.

There are a few questions I try to ask myself repeatedly as I struggle through the process: