Freeze On Favorites

I’m a journal junkie. I also love pens, purses and apparently, sweatshirts. Or so says the many piles in my closet. Last year I came to terms with my stocking caps, mittens and scarves. This year I’m taking the bull by the horns and constituting an entire “Freeze on Favorites”.

There is nothing wrong with loving office supplies. Obsessing over a beautiful new leather bag every few months is not a sin. Owning a plethora of sweatshirts can be practical, if you’re someone who spends a lot of time outdoors. What’s the harm? On the surface, I could have far more destructive behaviors but when I allow myself to really dig into my obsessive need to wander down the paper aisle at Target and yearn for yet another pretty covered book with empty pages just waiting to be filled with my thoughts and doodles, well, as my grandma use to say, all is not well in Denmark.

In my possession at this very moment, I count 72, new and…gently used, notebooks, journals, sketch pads, tablets and planners. SEVENTY-TWO!! Add those to my insane collection of pens, markers, highlighters and sharpies and I could open a small shop. I could journal every day from now until my eightieth birthday and still never come close to using all the paper stored in the various cabinets and shelves around my home. Want to know how many completely full notebooks/journals I have? Sixteen.

At what point does a love for something become a problem? I don’t know for sure, but for me, I think it’s when I’m only using 18% of it and when it’s pull begins to control my behavior. These things are meant to be tools to be used by me. I think when they begin to control certain behaviors, like how and where I shop, they’ve become less tool, more trap.

I cannot keep ice cream in our house. I joke that it calls to me from the freezer…”Tina! Yohoo! Over here!! Creamy, sweet, lucious…just a scoop or two won’t hurt.” Okay…maybe I’m being a tad dramatic but it is sort of true. Purses and bags have the same affect. I see one that has a beautiful shape, or comes in the perfect shade of mustard. Maybe it has a feel to it, or great organizational pockets, that let’s face it, always end up full of coins or Chapstick and receipts. If I manage to dodge the initial purchase it will call to me just like the ice cream until it either is bought by someone else or by myself.

I own 36 various bags, purses, backpacks and totes. (That’s after a significant donation to Goodwill.) Three of the 36 were gifts, and the rest I can tell you almost without hesitation where I bought it and why I liked it and approximately what I paid for it. Yet, nearly 85% of them sit or hang in my spare closet day after day after day. These are not precious treasures. If my house were to catch fire, I wouldn’t give them a second thought. Yet I allow them to take up space in my life.

My latest minor obsession has sprung up rather surprisingly. Or maybe I just never gave it much thought…I’m not entirely sure. For the past three years I’ve made it a mission to clean out my closet twice a year. Every single time I get everything weeded down nicely, except for my sweatshirts. I love them all. Most of them come from vacations we’ve taken or sports teams our kids played on but several are just those wonderful, warm and cozy, a-bit-too-big sweatshirts that are great for lounging around the house on cold winter days. My only defense on this one is that I do wear nearly all of them at least a couple times a year, but there’s maybe four or five that get worn consistently. And I wouldn’t even include this on my list of favorites except that I have noticed a rather disturbing need to paw through them anytime I find myself at a shop or store.

I enjoy all these things, and probably a few others (jackets come to mind), very much but the reality is that they are just things. Too many of these things are going unused and taking up space, not just in my home but in my life. It doesn’t matter how well you organize things, or how neatly you keep them, they still have a way of weighing you down. That’s why when you clean out the clutter draw or a closet you have that initial feeling of a weight being lifted.

My solution…for this year anyway is this…”Use it up, wear it out, make it do, or do without.” I saw that quote on Instagram by The Sprouting Homestead and it stuck with me. I can enjoy these things a whole lot more by actually using them. My journals have little value, until I fill them up. Purses and bags are useless sitting empty on a shelf. And sweatshirts, well, lets face it, there will always be more sweatshirts. I see one today I like but tomorrow I could see two more and I have far more than I need already. So why not wear them till they wear out? Why not use what I have and fill my life with experiences rather than things?

While my focus is on those things I feel I’ve lost control over, my hope is that it bleeds into other little obsessions as well. Chapstick, for example. Pens and books also come to mind.

I’ll be back later this year with a follow-up blog to let you know how it’s going. What about you? Anything you want to use up or wear out? Feel free to share in the comments. Maybe we can encourage one another.