Emotions make me sad and clutter makes me sadder

I am an emotional person. I am an emotional eater. I hold on to things because of emotions. I get rid of things because of emotions. It seems that everything I do is driven by emotions.

I am trying to get past the emotional eating thing - or at least make better choices when I am upset and feel like I have to eat. I guess it is a start. Eventually, I would like to not have to worry about making wise food choices when I am upset. Baby steps.

Money is very emotional for me, too. I grew up poor and now I am afraid of feeling poor again. I am afraid of feeling poor so I will spend money on things instead of saving it. I guess the illusion of having money is better than actually having it? That is just silly, really. Quite honestly, I don't do much rogue sabotage spending but sometimes I just want things other people have, you know? Sometimes I want to go to a restaurant that one of my family members doesn't work at and pay full price for a meal as a family. Baby steps.

I have been flip-flopping about whether or not to get rid of the buffet that was my great grandmas. It serves no real purpose to me, but I can't bring myself to let go of it. I will get there.

Why do you think we hold on to things that we don't want or need? I wish I knew. I have a few totes full of things that I neither want nor need - but can't bring myself to get rid of. Granted, compared to a lot of people a few totes is nothing. My grandma and grandpa had a house full.

My grandparents were hoarders. I never thought anything of it. It was just how they were. I am sure it had something to do with living through the depression, though.

Now, they weren't hoarders like you see on TV. They didn't have a kitchen full of cat food cans (their kitchen was full of other stuff) or have to sleep in the yard because if their stuff. Almost, but not quite. While I don't doubt that they always had a problem with clutter, apparently it got bad when my grandpa's parents died and he, as the only child, inherited their possessions. Unable (unwilling?) to get rid of "such niece pieces" and things that were "worth something", they piled a complete household in to their already cluttered house. Multiply that by another set of parents dying and you get the idea. As an example, by the time they moved in to a nursing home, they had four complete dining room sets (table, 12 chairs, buffet, hutch).

By the way, all of the stuff that was "worth something" wasn't from years of not being taken care of. The majority of it ended up in a dumpster or in my aunt's garage. I am sure that being a burden to their children is not what my grandparents envisioned all of those years that they tripped over, walked around and piled stuff on top of their treasures. But it is what happened.

When I was four, my house burned down. Twice. My mom still has a few cookbooks with burnt edges, but almost everything was lost. That kind of messes with you. On one hand, you don't really have an attachment to material things because you see how fast it can all go away. On the other hand, you know how fast everything can disappear so you don't want to let go of things. Trust me... it makes no sense to me, either.

So there are my thoughts on clutter and why it is an ongoing battle for me. I wish I had the solution, but short of getting rid of everything, I don' know that I will ever be free of the feeling that we have too much.