Renovations and reorganizing

Everybody's living space needs renovations after a while.  The newly fresh becomes the comfortingly familiar and then degenerates into the tired , closely followed by the dingy. Usually it happens slowly. There are the repeated incidents of spilled juice, the accidental marks from markers that turned out to be permanent rather than washable. A grape slips into a crease or crack unnoticed and slowly oozes into a raisin. It's a process.  

When you decide to renovate it always means sorting, cleaning, throwing out, and waging battle with piles.  I've also realized that inevitably when you clean, sort, and put everything back in place there is always a pile [hopefully smallish] of things that no longer have a logical place in the newly organized space, but need a place somewhere.  The challenge is to refuse to let those things become a stack or pile in a different room, on a different dresser, etc.  

Only rarely is someone born with the skills needed for cleaning and organizing. All parents have watched with horror the results of a young child deciding to rearrange their bedroom. Children tackle the project with great enthusiasm and energy, pulling everything out from corners, cubbies, closets, and more.. eager to reorganize their living space into their image of perfection. Unfortunately it is no surprise when the effort is larger than the energy supply, that the enthusiasm is gone long before the piles in the center of the room are gone. What often results is one or two small newly neat areas sounded like islands in the middle of an ocean of chaos and mess.  

There are tricks and strategies to cleaning efficiently and successfully. [One drawer, one area at a time... Match time and energy to task, etc.] Parents must teach children how to clean just as you teach them how to brush their teeth. The process is slower than dental hygiene, probably even toilet training, but faster than study skills. Much harder is the task of teaching them how to choose what to value, what to toss, what to keep.  How can we do that when it is so hard for us to do ourselves?  I sometimes think I was genetically coded, environmentally groomed, and encouraged by life events to be a packrat.  I hate the label of packrat.  But... I admit the truth. It is an inescapable conclusion for anyone walking through my home, especially beyond the "public spaces" most guests are limited to. 

I was taught the steps of cleaning.  I was taught the strategies of efficiency and success.   What I did not learn was a more practical sense of what to value, how to choose what to toss and what to keep.  Clearly.  I have saved baby clothes and toys for my children to show their children. But they now have children and don't really care about showing them.  I have saved toys and books to hand down, but it turns out rarely does anyone want the handed down.  So why am I saving things still for my current cherubs. Artifacts from kindergarten and middle school and high school fill box after  box.  For what? Why is it so hard to just toss them? There are lots and lots of justifiable reasons why I am/ my house is where I am/ it is.  But if that is not what I want, then renovations are in order.  So where does that leave me, other than in a house that I find overwhelming and often discouraging?  I have tried the one drawer, one spot approach and never get far enough to move ahead, only barely to keep the tide at bay.  So I will try something new today.  I will try beginning by admitting/ accepting the responsibility.  

Hello.  My name is Gail.  I am a packrat.  

[I'll keep you posted.]