Cleaning - It’s Not Just for Spring
Well, as some of you may remember, it’s been nearly a year since I moved into my apartment. And yes, my apartment still isn’t entirely clean.
Between my Job, learning how to live on my own, and a host of other things that needed to get done “clean” has described the areas I let others into in my apartment for perhaps a month full of days. I realize that this will likely sound like whining. After all, many of you likely manage to get your homes clean and keep them that way within a week or a month of moving in. Right?
Unfortunately I have several things working against me in this particular endeavor and despite that fact I am grateful for many of these factors.
Rather than having to furnish or rent all of my own furniture, I inherited furniture from not one, but two different households. My mother and step-father donated a few older pieces that they didn’t need any more. I also received many gifts to help prepare myself for the move. This included a tool set, a set of flat ware, and several pieces of Asian dining ware. Asian food is one of my favorite ethnic foods, and I prefer to eat it with the corresponding implements when available.
My move also happened to coincide with my father moving in with his betrothed in preparation for their wedding. It was a lovely ceremony by the way. Because of that I was given any and all furniture that I wanted from a whole 3 level house, and anything I didn’t take with me when I moved was going to be sold at a garage sale.
Many of these pieces of furniture had been in our family for as long as I can remember. Some of my first memories were of playing board games on the coffee table that now sits in my living room. I always did like the style of the furniture as well. Needless to say I was quite grateful and took a huge selection. I was also allowed to, and did, take many kitchen wares.
This meant sorting through the wonderful donations of two different houses, and deciding which of these gifts I needed and would use, and which I needed to get rid of in order to make space.
During my formative years neither my mother nor grandmother ever got rid of something if it still had a use or might be useful. Only in the last 5 years to a decade did my mother start to unclutter her home by removing any non-sentimental item she didn’t think would have use, beauty, or both. These days she even gets rid of some sentimental pieces unless they are things of beauty, have a use, or are photos of times she wants to remember.
Due to this upbringing it was a harder task to sort through all of these possessions than it would be for some, but it was also an object lesson in learning to do so. So while it took time to do the sorting, it also helped me to grow.
To further exacerbate the problem, I now moved nearly all of my old belongings that had followed my family through previous moves and I had never managed to fully unpack. One of those moves is now over a decade ago.
So in addition to the donations from my family, I also needed to sort through and remove or keep many of my older those items as well. I am still in the process of doing so. Many of these items still seem like old treasures. I also needed to find out what things I didn’t have that I did need, and procure them.
Recently, I managed to get my living room and kitchen into a state where I felt comfortable having guests. I also got fully caught up on all of the recurring cleaning such as washing clothes and dishes.
My mother and step-father recently sorted through their items in storage and moved those items they kept into a smaller storage facility. I fully expect that they will repeat this process until there is no more rented storage.
They may be aided in this endeavor by the fact that both of my brothers are nearing the age of graduation from college. They may soon move out and take most of their things in their rooms and in storage with them. This will allow more room for my mother and stepfathers things.
Due to my mother and stepfather’s sorting I received a box that I had no room for. I have been in the process of unpacking and sorting through it since. Thus my living room has again fallen into shambles.
Many of the items in the box are display pieces I was sure were in other boxes on my list of items to unpack. Furthermore, since I recently cleared off some display areas I have put them back up. Others are old items from some of my collections or that I once treasured highly, and I have no idea what to do with them. I’m not even sure yet whether to keep them, or get rid of them.
Please don’t get me wrong — I am incredibly grateful for the generosity of my family. Were it not for them I’d have spent thousands of dollars to set up my first apartment. But one of the side effects of all of this generosity, coupled with my voluntarily busy schedule is a prolonged period of cleaning, sorting, donating, and tossing things out.