Death and Cleaning

Have you ever heard of Swedish Death Cleaning? Like the KonMari method, it’s a philosophy of ownership, a way of framing one’s relationship with stuff. Instead of centering how your things make you feel, death cleaning gets its name from the idea of decluttering with an eye toward the fact that someone will have to deal with your stuff when you die. Presuming that you like that person (or people), it’s assumed you’d like to do as much of this for them as you can. It’s not meant for stuff you’re using on a daily basis, but it cultivates a mindset of “why am I holding onto this.”

The answer might be that nobody will know what it is, in which case wouldn’t it be great to write down what’s important about it (or who the people are in those photos, etc) so that someone other than you knows why it’s wonderful? It might be that you want to give it to your child/nephew/friend/etc, in which case, do they know that’s your plan? Do they want it? Are you using it in the meantime? If you’re not using it and they would be enjoying it, maybe consider giving it to them now.

In some ways this is very helpful in straightforward ways: why am I keeping old to-do lists? I don’t refer back to them. They’re not going to make sense to anyone but me. Maybe they should go.

On the other hand, well…

It’s the OCD. I know it’s the OCD that says “nobody needs any of this, nobody cares about what you write or do, none of this matters, why do we own things, we should sell everything and become a wandering hermit” or something.

(Yeah the OCD/depression raccoon in my head wants to be a vanliving loner despite the fact that I hate driving, get sick traveling, and love my family. He just insists everyone would be better off without me. I know he’s lying, but he’s still there and the van life builds on youtube do look really cool…)

We’re getting ready to move so it’s a lot of thinking about what I own, what we own, and why. It’s the kind of exhausting that makes me nod thoughtfully when Tyler Durden says “the things you own end up owning you.” I hate moving so much and that doesn’t help. It both complicates my feelings and it grinds them down because feelings are exhausting.

I wish getting rid of things wasn’t so fraught, but here we are.