Your Stuff is Everywhere and it is Warping Your Perception of Sentimentality

Our personal environments affect our emotional state, but to what degree do these environments rely on objects of use or decor, as opposed to stationary furniture? The reason so many of us admire model rooms in stores like IKEA isn’t solely due to their visually pleasing modern furniture display, but the illusion of organization and productivity that they suggest, as well.
You can easily picture a day in the life when standing in one of those spaces. You visualize your open laptop streaming Spotify on the desk, a steaming mug of coffee on the cork coaster that rests on your nightstand, and your (magically new and stylish) wardrobe hanging in your closet. Yes, you would be so happy with this room, an entirely new person, really.
What we forget to consider during these daydreams are our current possessions. The model bedroom looks spick-and-span now, but what if you were to move in right this second? Where would you put all your shoes, jewelry, books, and music collection? Do you have an instrument? What about a pet? Where’s a sunlight place for the houseplant you suddenly want? By now, your stuff is everywhere and the peaceful effect of Swedish minimalism has been snuffed out. The reason you have too much stuff to live minimally might not be caused by sheer lack of motivation to clean, but by emotional significance you unknowingly assigned to your things.
Through decluttering my bedroom as I repaint and redecorate it, I’ve begun to understand the purpose of my possessions and how few of them I truly need.
Until very recently, I’ve always had a difficult time letting go of material things. I wouldn’t donate clothes I hadn’t even worn in months because I’d convince myself that someday it could complete the perfect outfit. I’d stack old homework assignments and notebooks from previous school years in case I someday needed to refer back to the material. Any insignificant trinket like a McDonald’s Happy Meal toy, a 25¢ ring, or a marble was hoarded in odd corners of drawers or crammed between dusty containers of art supplies at the back of my closet.
Over the years, this accumulation of junk meant that my room was never truly clean. Even if I made my bed, sorted my laundry, cleared up floor space, and reorganized decorations, no surface was left open. The gaps between furniture and wall were still full of old posters, something long forgotten was left abandoned under my bed, and cosmetic products were clustered together on dressers in an effort to appear organized. The concept of minimalism was a joke at best.
Decluttering my room has been a slow process. Stationed on the floor with black tea and Breaking Bad, I sorted through each drawer and shelf of my furniture until they were emptied. Sometimes I would set something aside in the “donate” pile only to reclaim it ten minutes later, or I’d stubbornly hold on to something before coaching myself into donating/recycling/disposing of it.
Relinquishing ownership over my accumulation of things became easier when I realized I was holding onto something, not because it retained any functional value, but because I relied on it for preserving certain memories. I didn’t want to let go of a broken compact mirror because my old friend Michelle gave it to me in 5th grade. I didn’t want to let go of a dolphin-shaped coin purse my mom bought for me at the zoo because dolphins were my favorite animal as a child. I didn’t want to recycle old report cards or homework assignments because I wanted to remember how hard I had worked in school.
Understanding my attachment to these objects helped me to see that while certain items will always have sentimental value to me, I don’t need to keep every object of my past to remember the best parts. Even if I had lost that mirror, the coin purse and every academic document from over the years in a catastrophe, I’d never forget my childhood friends, my various interests and phases, or my experience with school.
As someone who lived inside my imagination more than the real world as a child, you’d think I’d realize that my childhood cannot be summarized or contained within material goods. I’m a different person than I was as a child and as an adolescent, and someday I will look back on the person I am now and see her as another distinct version of whoever I’ll become. As I move toward a minimalist lifestyle, I will continue to let go of things that no longer serve me, the memories I have assigned to them, and the person I used to be.
Objects cannot represent who we are and we shouldn’t want them to.
