Removing the Clutter

Ah... Spring!  Or wait, perhaps it's still Winter?  Weren't we supposed to get a major blizzard this week?  I'm so lost and have no idea what our weather systems are doing anymore.  Anyways, we all know what Spring means.  People will soon be boxing up stuff that they no longer feel they need and  removing old furniture from their homes, either to take it off to the dump or send it out onto the sidewalks for their city's annual Cleanup Week, which can be a really good way to find things you need in your home free of charge, assuming you might be willing to do a little bit of fix-it work.

Personally, I've never been one to Spring Clean.  I will make sure my spaces get cleaned when they need to, but I find that things such as window washing, floor scrubbing, carpet shampooing, and so on can be done at any time of the year, not just the first few weeks of the season when we want everything clean all of a sudden for seemingly no reason.  Basically, I clean on my time, not by the length of the day or the month of the year.  I do understand why people do this though, because it's something I do too, albeit through the whole calendar year.

You see, we want to "remove the clutter" from our homes so to speak.  Whether it's a lamp we haven't turned on in ages, a box of old trading cards sitting in our bedroom closet collecting dust, or memories that are at our parent's house a far drive away, we want to reduce the mess that we have to deal with someday.  The mess contains childhood memories, unused items from the household, and maybe even the story of a broken life that once ran well-oiled.  It seems that we want to remove the mess while at the same time striving to make our homes look beautiful again.  It sounds great to the average American family, but I still have just one question....

WHY?

Why are we so eager to get rid of everything, tossing it out on the streets to get rained on and find new purpose with our friends and neighbors?  Why do we want to replace things that aren't broken?  Why do we wait until the majority of America is cleaning their home to clean it also?  It just doesn't make sense to me.

I've always been of the mindset that we should keep things until they're broken, clean our house regularly, and donate or sell the things we don't want any more.  You will never see me setting something out on the curb to get destroyed by water and extreme heat (we have both of those in May).  Sure it might be going to the dump in the end, but that doesn't mean we should just go ahead and give up on it does it?  No!  If we want someone else to find something of ours that has use, we should be taking it to donation stores (Saver's, Goodwill, Salvation Army) or donation boxes (Of which there seem to be more and more cropping up by the day).  There's also homeless shelters, halfway houses, camps that need supplies and don't pull in the funds to buy new.  So many options!  Why do we leave it all out on the street?  No one will ever know, but it's up to us to make sure that our no-longer wanted belongings find a new home, whether it's a forever home or just a temporary home, who really cares?  It's inanimate objects. 

But still, I agree with the desire of reducing clutter around the home.  We can feel trapped in our own homes and want to get rid of things to make it feel open, so we begin to assess what we want to keep and don't need anymore.  Sometimes it's a little, other times it's a lot.  But the one thing that holds true is that we don't need it in our lives anymore if we're considering getting rid of it, so let's go ahead and get it out the door, but in a way that benefits the public more than throwing it out on the street and saying "here ya go!"

Have fun "removing the clutter" from your place this Spring friends.