Organizing & Minimizing Stuff from People I Love & Miss

I am a sentimental person. I am so sentimental that I often watch an entire series of a television show, fall in love with characters, and then delay watching the series finales because I do not wan to miss the characters after the show ends. (In fact, there is one series that I never watched the finale of because I didn’t ever want it to end.)

This sentimentality really shows up in my home. It is in part why I am more of an organizer, and less of a minimalist. I really struggle to give away items that have some sentimental value to me. I wrote here about how to keep items. For me, one reason I keep items (and spend my precious time organizing them) is because I love them, and I love what they represent.

Enter the purple-pinkishy-mauvish-bedazzled velour sweater my grandmother gave to me in my teenage years. I love this sweater -- because grandma touched it and picked it for me. But, if I am honest, it is ugly. I am pretty sure it was always ugly. It’s so ugly, despite being 20 plus years old, it still has its tags on it. I have minimized and organized my own home for the last 10 years. I have used all the tricks up my sleeve to make sure that I am surrounded by items I either use or love. Everything in my home has a home. Everything I own has purpose with a few exceptions — and grandma’s sweater is one of those exceptions.

One of the tools I developed is this worksheet you can either write out or think through when you run into items like grandma’s sweater.

• I know that I am keeping this item because I love it. (But this could change after this process.)

• I love this item because it just reminds me of grandma. It’s got that 70’s ugly color look or something to it. All the pictures I have of her and I when I was a baby look like the 70’s (although I was an early 80s baby). Maybe I think it is fashionable because to me my grandmother was always the height of fashion (be it Walmart and KMart fashion) she was always fashionable.

• However, it is stored in my closet. I’m stuck here because I am not sure how else to store it. After reading about why I love it, I do what to keep it, but I am just not sure how to store it. Here are some options:

  • Make a pillow.

  • Put it in a shadow box.

  • Put it under glass on a table.

• But maybe it is just time to let it go. But I cannot just put it in a donation box and send it off. Maybe I will sell it to someone who really wants it.

• Or maybe I will wear it to see how I feel.

If you are spending time organizing just too many sentimental items, click here to join M.O.M. on Facebook to join a community of people ready to support each other in our home management journies.