Now I don’t claim to be obsessive about anything really. I like things fairly tidy, but then who doesn’t? I’m not too keen on other people clearing up on my behalf (mainly because what might look to some like a chaotic mess is really perfectly ordered to me) and I always double check that I’ve shut the windows and locked the door when I leave the house, and who doesn’t do that?
But now my past is catching up with me. I confess I hoard stationery. I’m a stationery addict, there I admit it. I know that I could very easily spend a whole day browsing around Paper Chase or Hobby Craft and it would fly by in seconds. So now that I’ve moved into a house with my fella (only 2 years ago…) my parents want my old room cleared out, and sooner rather than later. Oh dear. Well, they have held onto the junk I’ve collected for way too long now but still, I’m seriously dreading the hours its going to take me to sort it all out and the decisions that will have to be made. Do I throw away my stick drawings and paintings signed ‘Mary aged 5’ ? and what about the 6 geography GCSE course books full of all my neat handwriting and diagrams of rivers and meanders? And all of the paintings, sketch books, notes and then theres the music pieces that I anaylsed when studing for A’levels. As a compulsive hoarder (which I do inherit from my mother) I find it very difficult to throw anything a way, and usually once its gone I’ll inevitably need it for some obscure and highly unexpected reason. Just how do I decide whats worth keeping?
I suppose if I’ve not wanted for all this stuff in the last two years, it can’t really matter that much. But I just know that I’ll convince myself into keeping the most ridiculous of items; old cinema stubs, tickets, postcards, flyers, diaries, coloured pens, note paper, endless piles of stationery, receipts, leaflets, freebies, samples just where will it end? And if I’m truely honest with myself, what a waste!
Marys musings 