It Cost Good Money

I bought three bottles of peppermint essential oil several years ago, in the hope that the oil would eliminate a rodent problem we were having. I have heard that rodents cannot stand the smell of peppermint oil, and they would flee anyplace that smelled of peppermint. We got rid of the rodents, and I do not know if the peppermint oil helped, or if the snap traps did all the work. However, the rodents were gone. The essential oil remains.

I do not want to use this oil for anything else. I don't especially want to smell like peppermint. Among other reasons, I don't want to think about rodents all day. I have hung on to this oil for years, in case we have another rodent summer, and just because it seems wrong to throw essential oil away. After all, if I needed more, it's not cheap. I spent good money on these bottles, and I shouldn't throw them away!

Another way to look at this is: I bought these bottles, which served their purpose years ago. I hope not to need them again. I'll clear up this tiny section of counter and stop worrying about future rodents. After all, we're talking about something in the neighborhood of $5-10, not hundreds. Letting go of all that space, all over the house, is worth the minor financial investment if I need to buy the oil again.

Hanging on to the essential oil will not bring the money back to me. So I need to come to grips with the money spent in the past (an expense I was willing to spend at the time) and stop cluttering up the present.

With this in mind, I will pass my essential oils along to a friend whose garage has become inhabited. I will release the money I spent in the past in order to have a more enjoyable present and future. This will stop being one of my excuses.

But I have the space!

I'm going to throw my husband under the bus here. When I get the decluttering bug, one of his frequent excuses (other than "but I use that") is "but we have the space."

Not surprisingly, I do not find this a justifiable excuse. I feel so much better in uncluttered spaces (to be honest, so does he). So having space to keep clutter does not justify having clutter.

I find that when I declutter spaces where I "have space," I free up room throughout the room or even my whole house. For example, when I discarded expired ointment and a medicine dropper from the medicine cabinet I was able to declutter the bathroom counter. I now have space for my deodorant in the medicine cabinet. My daily environment is less cluttered because I cleared out a space that was hidden. Although I "had space" for those unnecessary items, decluttering allowed me to prioritize valuable things above undesirable things.

This is true for anything. Deluttering the garage, the linen closet, the cabinet under the sink allows me to get rid of the things that aren't really valuable. This may allow me to store something I find valuable (I like to store the swim things together during the summer, in the linen closet, so no one loses a swimsuit and we can walk out the door to the pool without hassle) or it may allow me to simply enjoy a clean counter, dryer or other flat surface.

Sometimes I don't see the point to decluttering invisible spaces. If we've "always" stored table linens there, why should I declutter them? We're not going to stop using tablecloths and napkins, after all. But the last time I decluttered that space I found two tablecloths that I didn't even realize we had, and now it's easier to find what we actually need.

I know some people like to declutter their home in one fell swoop. I'm the other kind of person; I keep whittling down my unnecessary possessions until I (hopefully) have a minimalist home with nothing in it except the things I find really important to the way we live. Hopefully a day will come when I do not have to worry about cluttered surfaces, cabinets or drawers. Even better, I hope not to have a cluttered mind. In the meantime I will continue to declutter both the hidden and visible clutter, whether we have room for it or not.

"Ought to"

I realized yesterday that a lot of the clutter I have difficulty with is of the "ought to" variety. My imaginary minimalist house (the home I am working for) is a restful place, without stuff ordering me around. I realize now that I need to get rid of the "ought to" things that are cluttering up both my mind and my home.

A realization came to me when I saw the business card case full of cards for a volunteer position I hold. I "ought to" use those, I thought. Then it occurred to me that I have not had a desire for the cards, they were a gift to all the volunteer leaders, and I had not had a need for the cards or the holder in the year or more since I received the cards. With that, I dumped the cards and the guilt. I no longer will think about the things I should do when I see it, every morning in the basket where I keep my hair accessories. (Another question might be why the case was there, but it is to no purpose now.) I could both declutter the physical object and the responsibility associated with it.

That is my problem with a lot of clutter I have around the house. The laundry detergent I can not use with my new washer -- I "ought to" do something with that. But I have another stain remedy, and it works better than the soap does. I just need to let it go! I "ought to" frame the fruit crate labels I bought for the kitchen 15 years ago -- but I have other decor, and I don't need another errand. So I will put them on ebay today, and someone else can enjoy them.

If I get rid of the clutter than causes my guilt, anxiety or stress, I am both minimalizing my environment and my internal life. Which is the point, isn't it? Minimalism is supposed to be about eliminating the excess in my life so I can enjoy the desirable elements.

I don't always realize the difference between clutter and the things I need. I am getting better at understanding the reasons for keeping some of the things I have kept, things that do not add to the enjoyment of my life. I'm really happy every time I recognize a stumbling block for what it is, and I am able to avoid it in the future.

Decluttering "Useful" Things

Decluttering useful things is hard for me. Harder than decluttering decorative things, or sentimental things. If it's useful, or something I should use, then why am I not using it?

Case in point: I have a face scrub that is half used up. It's very nice face scrub. I just usually wash my face with soap in the shower -- I don't think to use the scrub. It needs to be kept out of the shower because it is a powder, so I can't move it to a more convenient location. But I can't give it away -- it's used. I don't want to throw it away -- there's nothing wrong with it. So it sits on the counter (still), waiting for me to make a decision about how to deal with a bottle of scrub.

This happens with lots of things. If I try something and don't like it, I have no problem giving it away, or even throwing it away. The dish washing liquid that did not discernibly cut grease is gone. But "perfectly good borax" from making my own laundry soap (it doesn't dissolve in my new washer) sits, waiting for a craft project. (For that matter, the leftover homemade soap sits as well, waiting to be used up. Not it's fault.)

I don't want to be the little old lady with stacks of old egg cartons, empty mayonnaise jars or cool whip containers. That's what this reluctance to get rid of "useful" things is, though. Keeping something that is not actually useful because it might be useful someday is how that little old lady got into that trouble.

So what do I do? Clutter is delayed decisions, so I need to make a decision about how to get rid of these things. I'll have to move the scrub to a dry(ish) spot in the shower. If it gets ruined from humidity, or dropped in the tub, at least it will no longer be cluttering up the counter. I can search Pinterest for other uses for borax, and washing soda. I may find them irreplaceably useful, and they may remain on my list of things I need. Or I may use them up and move forward.  The soap will be a pretreatment for laundry with stains. I know my shower curtain could use the extra attention.

And so it goes. The useful things are the hardest for me to declutter, but if they aren't being used, they really aren't as useful as I like to think they are.