Often as active eclectic families who participate in many hobbies, sports, and recreation, children eventually grow up and move on creating their own spaces, families and activities. Those spaces accumulate life. Each activity and hobby has its own set of accumulations.
Now, imagine you are 65 in the home you have lived in for decades raising those kids, celebrating milestones and storing away memories to keep for “later”. Your kids have moved out of state to colleges, careers and their own family homes and active lives. You are ready to downsize and retire to another destination but you look around at all the containers and boxes of...”Things”. Things in the attic, the crawl space, the garage, the basement, the storage units you haven't seen in months or maybe even years. Boxes you labeled but no memory bells are ringing of what may be in them because you haven't opened it since Christmas 1978.
The kids moved out 20 years ago and never took any of these “things” with them. There are old footballs and soccer trophies. Posters of 80s bands and a baby blanket eaten away by time and moths. Are you taking all this with you to your retirement condo in Miami? Are you going to store in away in a facility? Who will move it all, who will inventory it. What is your actual plan for most of these items?
A plastic bin of collectible figurines wrapped in old newspaper from the Clinton Administration, but you are saving them to give to your daughter as a gift?
A box of old baby and children’s clothing that is discolored and stained and torn, but your son looked so cute in them, maybe he will want them for his kids?
Christmas decorations that you haven't used in decades because you travel out of state for the holidays or have been wintering south to find your retirement town. They have been collecting dust on a shelf in the basement.
Yard tools that haven't worked in years or you havn’t even moved because you hired a gardener years ago when it just became too difficult to navigate.
The facts are, your kids actually don’t want the items you are saving for them because not only do they not know they still exist, but these items only have sentimental value to you. They have their own life accumulations in their own home of their own memories and sentimental items. Making room in their home for boxes of your memories often isn’t a source of appreciation. The boxes and shelves of unused, outdated, and broken items are just taking up space which you are about to have a lot less of. These stained cloths and collectables are most likely not “vintage” or worth anything at all.
So, here is your dilemma. You planned on selling your home and moving in 6 months, but you didn’t realize the enormity of fourty years of accumulation of life’s “THINGS”. What is your plan?
Swedish Death Cleaning isn’t about death. It’s about being realistic about your possessions. Hanging on to things that are taking up valuable space in your homes and lives that serve no further purpose. Holding on to the kayak you used weekly two summers in case you wanted to go again or someone wanted to use it, even though you tore your rotator cuff and can’t pull the paddle anymore. Maybe it might be time to sell it on marketplace or eBay to someone that can use it and you take the money and go to a nice meal with your friends.
Starting this process decades earlier, usually recommended to begin around 55. Learning early on and making it more of a “lifestyle” throughout your life is more effective by practicing it daily or weekly as you navigate the lifestyle changes we navigate as humans. Last minute “death cleaning” is also possible. Ultimately, it will be much more stressful and costly. You may need to participate in urgent death cleaning that can include several unplanned reasons and can also include actual end of life scenarios.
Moving long distances out of state or to a new country
Job relocations due to lay offs
Entering a nursing facility due to stroke or injury/disease
Death of a spouse and urgent need to sell a home or vacate a property
Death of a remaining parent and need to sell family home
In any of these cases, the more time you have to evaluate what is truly important and useful to you, the less stressful this process becomes. Often times Swedish death cleaning can be a way to bring friends, family and loved ones together to have dinner and open a bottle of wine and go through old Christmas ornaments, books and papers you kept from college or boxes of old photos. Make new memories in the joy and laughter in differing stories and gifting opportunities to hand people items while you are all still present to enjoy them.
In the end there will be less work to do with all of your “things” when you are ready to move or downsize. There will be less physical exertion, less emotional and mental stress in making decisions and handling the guilt of discarding your memories and ultimately you will be able to give items to people you think will want them. You will have opportunity to research and donate things to organizations locally that might make a difference and give you a sense of helping others. Don’t wait til you don’t have a choice. Have an impartial person help you begin and design a plan of attack.
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