SINN-CLARK: The ‘pack rat’ starts cleaning out old memories

Wikipedia states, “The hoarder may mistakenly believe the hoarded items are very valuable, or the hoarder may know the accumulated items are useless, or may attach a strong personal value to items they recognize would have little or no value to others.” Bingo! That last phrase is me. For me, hoarding isn’t about the stuff — it’s about the memories attached to the stuff.

Mr. Clark has been cracking down on me over the past year. He helps me clean, sort, discard and organize. And, he’s instituted a new rule — one item in, at least two items out — four or five out would be better. This applies to everything: furniture, clothes, household décor, books, shoes, handbags, even pets.

“Now that the kids are gone, we have to get a grip on this,” is his battle cry and I agree. Turning that conviction into a reality can be difficult at times...so many memories.

Last week, I found a pretty, Spring-weight wool coat on sale so I bought it. The first thing out of Mr. Clark’s mouth was, “So, how many coats are you going to get rid of?”

That didn’t sit well with me since he didn’t even ask me to show him how good it looked on me, so I decided to show him!

I went through our coat racks and closets like a tornado, filling a huge bag to take to the Goodwill. It turned out it wasn’t that hard to turn lose of the coats once I realized all they represented were memories I could still hold onto. That pale green coat with the big moth hole in the back — the one I haven’t worn for six years — was from our family’s trip to Italy. That trip turned out to be our last one as a little nuclear family because after it, the kids got married — hence the importance of that coat.

The coarsely woven Indian serape on the same rack had retained its place of honor next to Italy coat because I got it during a trip to the Grand Canyon with my extended family — a trip that happened 12 years ago, but had such happy memories.

On and on it went; by the time I was done, I had three huge bags of clothing, all rich in memories, but poor in actual use potential.

There were the flirty skirts and dresses I wore 15 years ago when I was a still-young-enough-to-flirt reporter for a different newspaper and the black “power suit” I bought in 2000, when I ran for commission chairman.

There was the dress I wore to both of my kids’ high school graduations, 2000, 2001; and, the dress I wore to both kids’ engagement parties a few years later. I even found a dress, tucked safely away in a dry cleaning bag, that my Dad bought me after my son was born – in 1981 – because he “thought I might need something to wear that would make me feel good about how I look again.” A sweet sentiment, but I’m 100 percent sure I’ll never wear that dress again.

I threw away my old cross-country ski boots and some really big snow boots kept at the back of my closet for the past 22 years — after all, I might move back to Colorado someday…If that happens, I’ll buy new boots.

The things I didn’t throw away or donate were my mother’s wedding dress (from 1956), my wedding dress (from 1979), the dresses I wore to both of my kids’ weddings (2005, 2007) and my old EMS uniform, circa 2002. I figured even a hoarder was entitled to keep wedding wear and the EMS uniform had my name embroidered all over it, so who would want that?

I’m in the process of learning to cherish memories without keeping the stuff that was part of making them. It’s an ongoing process…wish me luck.

Lorin Sinn-Clark is a reporter for the Barrow Journal. She can be reached at lorin@barrowjournal.com.