Emotional Shredding

Emotional Shredding is a term that I created over Memorial Day weekend. I have been living up here in the Boston area since graduation, but when I left my parents' house I didn't exactly clean out my room completely. There were still pictures hanging on the walls, books in the shelves, and some emergency clothes stashed in the drawers. Now that my parents are planning on renovating their bedroom, having my sister move from her room to mine, and turning her old space into a real guest room, they needed "the shrine", as they like to call it, cleaned out.

My mom and I slowly tackled the bureau, night stand, shelves, drawers and closet. I was able to let go of a number of nick-nacks, papers, and the like. Every so often there were moments that my mom had to urge me a little harder to let go and for the most part, I would let her win. It was hard, but it was time.

RIP - phone bank from my 5th birthday party and jewelry box with small brown bear with bow tie that twirled while song played.

Part of the reason she won on these items was that the momentum to throw away was so strong. I received positive feedback when trashing items, as I have a habit of saving objects that contain memories. I became a junkie and even though I wasn't really ready to let go, I did because it felt good to purge. During the drive home, I felt pretty awful that some of those items were heading to the dump shortly. Thankfully my mom realized that there were some things she shouldn't have pushed on and took them out of the piles. Yay, the phone bank and jewelry box were saved!!

I have found that I have to be careful when I clean, I become an emotional shredder when I am in the mood to really clean house. One time I destroyed a journal from high school, I immediately regretted trashing my personal thoughts like that. Now, whenever I am in the mood to purge out my possessions, I hold off before bringing the items to GoodWill and keep the items in a pile for a week or so. This strategy has worked wonderfully for me.

My next big project will be dealing with the filing cabinet that I brought back with me from home. It needs to be gone through, but I am just not ready to deal with the papers that I have been holding onto and would rather give myself some time to process exactly what is trash, and what is treasure. While I know old credit card and utility bills can be shredded without a second glance, I don't want to accidentally destroy financial docs that need to be kept because I get in the zone. Maybe the next big rainy day will be set aside for this project.