“Aging In Place Well With Less Stuff”

While this storage space is relatively neatly;y organized, there certainly is a lot of stuff. Our challenge, especially as we come to the end of the year is to let go of some of it to free up our lives and our space.

As we prepare to exit 2021

As we prepare to wrap up another year and say goodbye to 2021, are leaving the year with more stuff in our homes than we began with 12 months ago or with less of it? Having more items remaining in our homes than we may have intended is a prevalent and pervasive issue with aging in place. Our stuff is commanding a relatively large footprint in our space.

This is not something that applies to just a few of us, and dealing with it successfully is a major challenge.

It would be nice to think that we could enter 2022 just a little lighter, in terms of the items we are keeping to remind us of the past and other important mementos and keepsakes, than we began 2021.

Looking back

As we review the current year, and to be sure this was not a typical year, we maybe have more items that we feel are important and that we want to preserve than was the case in past years. There are many reasons for this, but there is no denying that some of us just don’t have the space to keep adding items we want to retain and to maintain a comfortable living space at the same time.

There comes a time when we are looking back at our collection of physical memories that we have collected that some of these items that seemed so important at the time may have faded in priority. That’s when we can release them emotionally and begin to unclutter our space.

It would be a huge task for most of us to spend the time to evaluate everything we have saved and to make a keep-discard-donate decision on each one quickly. We have to take it a little more slowly and intentionally. It could take weeks or months to get through everything on just the first pass.

Cleaning our slate

While not possible to exit 2021 and enter 2022 with a totally clean slate unless we literally abandon everything we have, we can make great strides to help eliminate the emotional, physical, and psychological drain and claim that all of our stuff has on us.

We need to strive for more accessible and comfortable living spaces that are unencumbered by our possessions and retained treasures from the past. To the extent we are prepared to let go of some of these items, the lighter our load is going to be as we transition into the new year.

Here’s to a happy, healthy, and less cluttered new year!

 

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