If you want an incentive to stop buying things you don’t need, go to your attic. Better yet, visit mine.
Take one look inside my tote-filled, can’t-fit-another-thing-in-it space, and you’ll cut up your credit cards. If you’re feeling charitable, you could stick around to help me de-clutter the attic that was once, during a brief history of glorified cleanliness, labeled as “walk-in” storage.
Today, my attic is more aptly classified as a “throw-in” space. One simply opens the attic door and throws in an item on top of a mountain of “must-keep” things.
Only the brave dare enter.
Once, our dog Honey went missing for an afternoon. Panic-stricken, we canvassed the neighborhood. Returning home, we heard a faint yelp coming from the second floor. Honey was in the attic trembling on top of Mount Mangan. It took months before she’d get close to the attic door again.
The missing factor in this clutter crisis is motive (I knew watching “Law & Order” would come in handy one day).
No one in my family is considered messy. If anything, we are quite neat. We’re the Felix in Oscar and Felix. We’re like “Monk.” We make our beds in bounce-a-quarter-off-the-sheet style – for fun.
So why is our attic declared a major catastrophe? I’m not a pack rat, but I am extremely sentimental, which is like a pack rat’s matronly aunt who smells like Elizabeth Taylor’s “White Diamonds” perfume. Speaking of which, I have the perfume in one of the boxes in the attic.
I have a reallllly good reason: It reminds me of my mom on my wedding day when she hugged me close, tenderly kissed my cheek, then ran off yelling “Hallelujah! We finally got the girl married!”
However, I am not the main offender when it comes to our attic mess. My husband wins that trophy.
To think it all began with one ceramic Christmas cottage passed down from his mother. One cottage turned into two, then three, then 11. Next thing I know, Mike’s Christmas village is a dadgum Thomas Kinkade metropolis. Do we really need five battery-operated chestnut vendors?
And then we have all of our children’s stuff.
First outfit worn home from the hospital. Gotta keep it.
First painting in pre-kindergarten. Wasn’t that just yesterday?
Favorite toy during our son’s Tonka truck phase. Can’t get rid of that!
Oh, look! Pictures of Gillian at her dance recital when she walked out on stage waving to us the entire time while making nary a jazz step. A definite keeper.
OK, I admit it. I’m the main clutter offender and proud of it. Truth be told, I’ve culled out things that didn’t make the “legacy cut.” Now, I’m strictly down to heirlooms.
I’m not holding onto stuff anymore. I’m holding on to memories.
Price of all the totes in our attic? Too much.
Value of what’s inside them? Priceless.
Need a bigger attic? Definitely.
