Throwing Away My Past Life: Part 3

On By Lois RoelofsIn aging, Health, memoir, retirement, writing

My past life has now been shredded. I’ve sorted and purged my multitude of banker’s boxes and file cabinet drawers. I’m starting over with a clean slate! What is not in my memory is no longer retrievable.

When Marie Kondo came out with her book, “The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up,” my husband and I were living downtown in a Chicago high rise. I devoured the book and seriously purged my closets and dresser drawers, and some furniture, and, as she suggested, asked each item if it was giving me joy. If I got no answer, out it went.

I sent Marv down the elevator with valet carts full of items to take to a thrift shop in the suburbs. He had to pass the doormen on his way to the garage. After several trips, they asked him what was going on. He told them, “Lois is giving away things that don’t give her joy.” He added, “Luckily, I’m not on the cart myself yet, so I guess I still give her joy.”

Now it was time to take Marie Condo’s question to my tons of paperwork. Did my teaching notes still give me joy? (I retired 22 years ago.) Did a ton of old letters, cards, and printed emails still give me joy? Did the papers I wrote in my graduate work still give me joy?

I read every single item and put it in a save or shred or toss pile. I started in early June and finished this past weekend. It’s been an emotional month, reading highlights and low lights of my life. My guiding question was, “Will saving this to look at in the future give me joy?” If not, out it went.

My hallway is no longer filled with boxes:

I filled my recycle container twice with shredded papers. I think the sun is bestowing a farewell blessing on my years of hard-earned work.

The space in which we live should be for the person we are becoming now. Not for the person we were in the past.

Marie Kondo

Notice that I’ve not addressed photos! That will take a few months. It’s time now for a rest. I hope I’ve motivated you. Getting rid of this much feels really good! And, don’t worry, I still have a few boxes of my very favorite stuff to peruse again. Maybe in ten years. When I’m 90!

20 thoughts on “Throwing Away My Past Life: Part 3”

  1. Mary Meyer

    Lois, I’m a friend of Rebecca Devries Savola and met you in Michigan a few years ago. I’ve been enjoying your blog since then. I have not read Marie Kondo’s book but am certainly aware of it. The book that influenced my purging is “Swedish Death Cleaning”. The author encourages purging so your children don’t have to deal with all your stuff. I have found that to be so helpful. Yearbooks from high school- gone! Books I’ll never read again- gone! I thank things for their contribution to my life and say goodbye.

    Onward! Mary Meyer

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    1. Well, thank you for the follow, Mary. I imagine you were a member of Becky’s book club. A lovely memory! And the death thing is a huge motivator for me. I can see my children getting a dumpster and out my treasures will go! But I also want to save my kids from wondering what and if anything should be saved. For now, just knowing there are fewer boxes and files gives me a lighter feeling.!

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  3. Vickie

    Your hallway is beautiful. Your sorting is inspiring. I sort in small ways. A drawer here a closet shelve there. If I have too much stuff in my house, I feel closed in.

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    1. However you’d like to define it! Doing a crash month on this came easier than doing a little bit each day. I had papers everywhere-floor, couch, table, island. Now mostly cleaned up!

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  6. Good for you, Lois. I am right behind you but have been busy with garden and quilting. I am looking at a bookcase as I write and wondering how much of it is bringing me joy and how much is an image keeper. Some of it is and this surprises me because I’ve never been big on maintaining an image before others. And your criteria is perfect for me because I am really big on living with joy right now. I hope we are able to maintain our connection through our 80’s. I’m looking forward to those years.

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    1. Thank you, Pat. Me too! I do have one bookshelf I keep to look at again someday but also for status! It contains the books I had to buy for the U of Chicago’s four-year adult learning program (based on their core curriculum and the Great Books of the Western World) I took when we lived downtown. In nursing I had so few liberal arts courses, so was thrilled I could take this. Started with Herodotus (first historian) and ended with Thucydides. If nothing else, I like to throw the names around😂. But then I don’t garden or quilt….!

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  7. reneebeamanschmieder2021

    What a gift you have given yourself and your children. Enjoy your accomplishment and thank for the nudge of motivation. I enjoy your blog so much!!

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  8. Mina Vander Pol

    Lois, the newspaper clipping you sent was a fun conversation over our Sunday noon dinner with the grandkids! Some recognized me; smaller kids, not. So thanks for sending it-I will scan it and put it in my Blodgett photo file-probably will be purging that at 90 if I make that. Good job on the purging! I did that when I left the farm, but didn’t have as much to purge as you had.

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  11. CG

    First, I love your bright hallway! I don’t agree with Kondo on everything and was glad you had a ‘saved’ pile for some things especially letters. Long after my dad died at 57 a cousin sifting through her more recently deceased parents things came across letters my father, as a young man in the war had written, and gave them to us. It was a wonderful thing to see/hear his voice as an 18 year old. Some things should be preserved. You never know how that message may affect someone some day. But good for you on the other stuff. I am getting rid of years of written calendars and diaries page by page lol

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