The Decluttering Is Finally Happening
Jan. 27th, 2025 11:17 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
walkitoutConstruction isn’t due to start until March (this is the attic room project), and I knew that there was a fair amount of shuffling that was going to have to happen to get ready for it. On the other hand, it’s still January. I wasn’t particularly worried. In my mind, it was basically clear out the attic room, and make sure there was space in the basement for staging construction stuff and we’re good to go.
Yesterday, I had a conversation with R. and it went … weird. I thought about it for a while, and then I went and I talked to him about my feelings about that conversation. In the context of the very many discussions I’ve been having lately about suppressing feelings and then they ooze out elsewhere, I wanted to know what was going on inside R. I was pointed in asking. I have been pointed many times in the past and got exactly nowhere, but the recent discussions about emotional over-control and whatnot have apparently kicked some blockages loose for a lot of people. Go us.
I undertook the attic project with quite a lot of detailed thought and I discussed it with R. along the way. I piled on top of this chaos _with intent_ having the contents of Florida Man’s stuff that I was paying storage unit fees on delivered to our basement. He agreed to clear that stuff out promptly, and to be completely fair, he did a lot and then it sort of stalled. I was not too worried about it. The rationale for combining this stuff was straightforward: a full sized unfinished basement is an invitation to defer decisions and just store stuff forever and we were going to have to go through it and I didn’t want to be going through it while also moving into the new house.
What I did not realize was just how much scope creep happened when R. was talking to the folks who were going to be doing the attic room. We had to have someone come in and do insulation on the unfinished space (it used to have a propane furnace in it; now there’s a heat pump). R. asked for some additional insulation. The insulation professional said, here’s where the real problem is. And the real problem is apparently in the basement. I asked R. why didn’t Mass Saves folks catch this on any of there 3? 4? trips to our house previously? Apparently, they have a list, and they only recently added this one to the list. *sigh*. So on top of everything else, everything in the basement against the wall (other than utility type stuff affixed to the wall) must be moved at least a couple (I’m betting closer to three) feet in from the wall so the work can be done.
R. was panicking and suppressing and leaking it out at me in the form of Regret At Attic Project AND Regret at New House Construction. *eye roll* He’s very mild; this basically comes out in the form of extremely contingent and limited agreement that I Did a Good Thing, which is the sort of thing that feels really hostile and makes me wonder why I still live with him. I used my words! I didn’t yell! I now know the scope of the project better (I’m sure he’s still hiding shit from me, because I mean look at this pattern).
I figured, you know, as long as we’re here, we’re going to finally dig into why it’s so hard to get rid of things in this house. I want to be clear. I’m not trying to get rid of his stuff. He makes it really difficult for me to get rid of my stuff. (And yes, I do mean taking it back out of the trash. *shudder*) I recognize there is legal precedent on ownership of stuff in the trash, so on some level, if I’m really going to own all of this, I need to actually put it in a vehicle and get it fully disposed of and inaccessible to him. I, personally. Neither one of us feels like that is a reasonable requirement (see above: why am I still living with him). I told him that I think there are two important aspects to why it’s hard for him to get rid of stuff. First, I think he’s parents, probably not intentionally, and definitely in different ways, communicated pretty clearly to him that Stuff is More Important Than Him (people in general, really). Second, I think that he has a core belief that it is immoral / wrong / some negative word to fail to extract every bit of value from an object. Storing an item (and give him credit: things he stores tend to degrade slowly if at all) is like putting money in the bank. When you put money in the bank, even if it earns interest, its value erodes (inflation, opportunity cost, you name it). When you store something, its value erodes. But as long as it is in the bank, stored in the basement, you feel like you haven’t lost anything. (I don’t feel that way, but a lot of other people sure do.)
I have a very different belief. I actually believe that stuff IS important (not as important as people!). But the way that works in my head is, I believe it is an actual ongoing crime for something to not be used. So if I’m not using it, it’s my responsibility to get it to someone who will use it as quickly as possible. You can see the conflict baked into this.
I did preface this whole thing as a Values Conversation in which There Is No Right Answer (carefully stepping around the elephant in the room which is, in a Values Conversation, there may be No One Right Answer, there sure as fuck are wrong ones). And it went really well. And then we went and looked at what was in the attic room and in the basement. This was Productive. We have a plan for this week.
Today, some New Hamsters arrived in a white mini van with a Trump/Vance sticker (Hey, I Did Say They Were New Hamsters!) to pick up the recumbent bike. We got the bike in, we were cordial, they left. Yay!
I’ve also sent email to the local library about whether they accept lego donations; if they do not, the school is next. Probably the district preschool.
R. took pictures of the Taga, so I’ll probably post that next. R. says that this year T. said we didn’t need to keep it any longer. (Previously, he’d asked us to keep it.) The Dakboard really wasn’t about this massive project — I was just feeling really bad about having that sitting in my living room for so long collecting dust and not being used. Getting rid of the recumbent bike WAS about the construction shuffle.
R. pointed out — totally separate conversation — that there are three lights on the switch that I’m having him replace 2 cans. We’re going to wait and see what we think before figuring out what to do about the third. That can is right in front of the laundry closet; I’m waffling between putting a alexa-controllable bulb there, the 4th Yuji bulb, or buying another conversion kit and flushmount. Hence, waiting.
Today in Decluttering! I had king sized comforters from the condo days, when I used to have a california king. I will never have one again, and they are nice comforters, so those are in bags to go to Savers. I collected a bunch more cardboard boxes from the attic room shelves, broke them down and put the various components in recycling / trash. We also found a bin full of mattress covers and maybe a mattress pad and put that in a bag to go to fiber recycling. Last night, I did some combining of things — the tie backs from the condo are now in the bin with the mudcloth drapes, awaiting installation in the finished attic room and/or in the new house.
Tomorrow is Tuesday, so nothing is happening that day (I mean, lots of driving). But Wednesday will be a Savers run and Thursday will be a run to HG (that should get at least two tables out of the basement, which will have a big impact). Friday we can reassess and see how much more needs to be done. I have boxes for my speakers (not getting rid of either the speakers or the boxes) that need to leave the attic room for construction; I’m thinking I’ll move them to the attic to the side of my office. I may get around to that today, altho it involves clearing out what’s in front of the door to that attic, which is a bit of a chore.
If you made it this far and are wondering what stalled clearing out Florida Man’s stuff, some of that is down to R.’s sister T (currently getting divorced). Some of it is down to T (our son). Basically, they had opinions about wanting some of that stuff for Florida Man (there’s no actual reason to believe he wants any of this stuff, and there’s a ton of reason to think that reopening all those memories would be absolutely cruel and disruptive so I’m not going it) and/or themselves. R.’s basic ideas about Not Wanting to Rebuy Stuff makes it tough for him to get rid of, say, pots and pans or a table, because, well, someone might need pots and pans or a table in the future. They will! They don’t need to have these ones, tho, and someone ELSE can make good use of these things _right fucking now_. So they are going to HG. I think it has really helped to have people come to the house very promptly (with competition!) to pick things up that I want to get rid of. He knows that the things HG takes get redistributed very quickly to people who really need them. I think it’s a lot harder for him to see that when we donate to the Savers affiliates, it’s going to people who are going to value those things, too, because he sees the people running the donation drive through and the bags just getting hurled into a stack.
Yesterday, I had a conversation with R. and it went … weird. I thought about it for a while, and then I went and I talked to him about my feelings about that conversation. In the context of the very many discussions I’ve been having lately about suppressing feelings and then they ooze out elsewhere, I wanted to know what was going on inside R. I was pointed in asking. I have been pointed many times in the past and got exactly nowhere, but the recent discussions about emotional over-control and whatnot have apparently kicked some blockages loose for a lot of people. Go us.
I undertook the attic project with quite a lot of detailed thought and I discussed it with R. along the way. I piled on top of this chaos _with intent_ having the contents of Florida Man’s stuff that I was paying storage unit fees on delivered to our basement. He agreed to clear that stuff out promptly, and to be completely fair, he did a lot and then it sort of stalled. I was not too worried about it. The rationale for combining this stuff was straightforward: a full sized unfinished basement is an invitation to defer decisions and just store stuff forever and we were going to have to go through it and I didn’t want to be going through it while also moving into the new house.
What I did not realize was just how much scope creep happened when R. was talking to the folks who were going to be doing the attic room. We had to have someone come in and do insulation on the unfinished space (it used to have a propane furnace in it; now there’s a heat pump). R. asked for some additional insulation. The insulation professional said, here’s where the real problem is. And the real problem is apparently in the basement. I asked R. why didn’t Mass Saves folks catch this on any of there 3? 4? trips to our house previously? Apparently, they have a list, and they only recently added this one to the list. *sigh*. So on top of everything else, everything in the basement against the wall (other than utility type stuff affixed to the wall) must be moved at least a couple (I’m betting closer to three) feet in from the wall so the work can be done.
R. was panicking and suppressing and leaking it out at me in the form of Regret At Attic Project AND Regret at New House Construction. *eye roll* He’s very mild; this basically comes out in the form of extremely contingent and limited agreement that I Did a Good Thing, which is the sort of thing that feels really hostile and makes me wonder why I still live with him. I used my words! I didn’t yell! I now know the scope of the project better (I’m sure he’s still hiding shit from me, because I mean look at this pattern).
I figured, you know, as long as we’re here, we’re going to finally dig into why it’s so hard to get rid of things in this house. I want to be clear. I’m not trying to get rid of his stuff. He makes it really difficult for me to get rid of my stuff. (And yes, I do mean taking it back out of the trash. *shudder*) I recognize there is legal precedent on ownership of stuff in the trash, so on some level, if I’m really going to own all of this, I need to actually put it in a vehicle and get it fully disposed of and inaccessible to him. I, personally. Neither one of us feels like that is a reasonable requirement (see above: why am I still living with him). I told him that I think there are two important aspects to why it’s hard for him to get rid of stuff. First, I think he’s parents, probably not intentionally, and definitely in different ways, communicated pretty clearly to him that Stuff is More Important Than Him (people in general, really). Second, I think that he has a core belief that it is immoral / wrong / some negative word to fail to extract every bit of value from an object. Storing an item (and give him credit: things he stores tend to degrade slowly if at all) is like putting money in the bank. When you put money in the bank, even if it earns interest, its value erodes (inflation, opportunity cost, you name it). When you store something, its value erodes. But as long as it is in the bank, stored in the basement, you feel like you haven’t lost anything. (I don’t feel that way, but a lot of other people sure do.)
I have a very different belief. I actually believe that stuff IS important (not as important as people!). But the way that works in my head is, I believe it is an actual ongoing crime for something to not be used. So if I’m not using it, it’s my responsibility to get it to someone who will use it as quickly as possible. You can see the conflict baked into this.
I did preface this whole thing as a Values Conversation in which There Is No Right Answer (carefully stepping around the elephant in the room which is, in a Values Conversation, there may be No One Right Answer, there sure as fuck are wrong ones). And it went really well. And then we went and looked at what was in the attic room and in the basement. This was Productive. We have a plan for this week.
Today, some New Hamsters arrived in a white mini van with a Trump/Vance sticker (Hey, I Did Say They Were New Hamsters!) to pick up the recumbent bike. We got the bike in, we were cordial, they left. Yay!
I’ve also sent email to the local library about whether they accept lego donations; if they do not, the school is next. Probably the district preschool.
R. took pictures of the Taga, so I’ll probably post that next. R. says that this year T. said we didn’t need to keep it any longer. (Previously, he’d asked us to keep it.) The Dakboard really wasn’t about this massive project — I was just feeling really bad about having that sitting in my living room for so long collecting dust and not being used. Getting rid of the recumbent bike WAS about the construction shuffle.
R. pointed out — totally separate conversation — that there are three lights on the switch that I’m having him replace 2 cans. We’re going to wait and see what we think before figuring out what to do about the third. That can is right in front of the laundry closet; I’m waffling between putting a alexa-controllable bulb there, the 4th Yuji bulb, or buying another conversion kit and flushmount. Hence, waiting.
Today in Decluttering! I had king sized comforters from the condo days, when I used to have a california king. I will never have one again, and they are nice comforters, so those are in bags to go to Savers. I collected a bunch more cardboard boxes from the attic room shelves, broke them down and put the various components in recycling / trash. We also found a bin full of mattress covers and maybe a mattress pad and put that in a bag to go to fiber recycling. Last night, I did some combining of things — the tie backs from the condo are now in the bin with the mudcloth drapes, awaiting installation in the finished attic room and/or in the new house.
Tomorrow is Tuesday, so nothing is happening that day (I mean, lots of driving). But Wednesday will be a Savers run and Thursday will be a run to HG (that should get at least two tables out of the basement, which will have a big impact). Friday we can reassess and see how much more needs to be done. I have boxes for my speakers (not getting rid of either the speakers or the boxes) that need to leave the attic room for construction; I’m thinking I’ll move them to the attic to the side of my office. I may get around to that today, altho it involves clearing out what’s in front of the door to that attic, which is a bit of a chore.
If you made it this far and are wondering what stalled clearing out Florida Man’s stuff, some of that is down to R.’s sister T (currently getting divorced). Some of it is down to T (our son). Basically, they had opinions about wanting some of that stuff for Florida Man (there’s no actual reason to believe he wants any of this stuff, and there’s a ton of reason to think that reopening all those memories would be absolutely cruel and disruptive so I’m not going it) and/or themselves. R.’s basic ideas about Not Wanting to Rebuy Stuff makes it tough for him to get rid of, say, pots and pans or a table, because, well, someone might need pots and pans or a table in the future. They will! They don’t need to have these ones, tho, and someone ELSE can make good use of these things _right fucking now_. So they are going to HG. I think it has really helped to have people come to the house very promptly (with competition!) to pick things up that I want to get rid of. He knows that the things HG takes get redistributed very quickly to people who really need them. I think it’s a lot harder for him to see that when we donate to the Savers affiliates, it’s going to people who are going to value those things, too, because he sees the people running the donation drive through and the bags just getting hurled into a stack.